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$2.99 eBook Sale: September 2022

IT’S ALMOST FALLLLLLLL, and while all the leaves are starting to drop, so are all of our AMAZING EBOOK DEALS!!! Check out what ebooks you can snag for only $2.99 here 😎


The Future of Another TimelineThe Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz by Annalee Newitz

1992: After a confrontation at a riot grrl concert, seventeen-year-old Beth finds herself in a car with her friend’s abusive boyfriend dead in the backseat, agreeing to help her friends hide the body. This murder sets Beth and her friends on a path of escalating violence and vengeance as they realize many other young women in the world need protecting too. 2022: Determined to use time travel to create a safer future, Tess has dedicated her life to visiting key moments in history and fighting for change. But rewriting the timeline isn’t as simple as editing one person or event. And just when Tess believes she’s found a way to make an edit that actually sticks, she encounters a group of dangerous travelers bent on stopping her at any cost.

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The Relentless MoonThe Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Earth is coming to the boiling point as the climate disaster of the Meteor strike becomes more and more clear, but the political situation is already overheated. Riots and sabotage plague the space program. The IAC’s goal of getting as many people as possible off Earth before it becomes uninhabitable is being threatened. Elma York is on her way to Mars, but the Moon colony is still being established. Her friend and fellow Lady Astronaut Nicole Wargin is thrilled to be one of those pioneer settlers, using her considerable flight and political skills to keep the program on track. But she is less happy that her husband, the Governor of Kansas, is considering a run for President.

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MysticMystic by Jason Denzel by Jason Denzel

For hundreds of years, high-born nobles have competed for the chance to learn of the Myst. Powerful, revered, and often reclusive, Mystics have the unique ability to summon and manipulate the Myst: the underlying energy that lives at the heart of the universe. Once in a very great while, they take an apprentice, always from the most privileged sects of society. Such has always been the tradition-until a new High Mystic takes her seat and chooses Pomella AnDone, a restless, low-born teenager, as a candidate. Pomella knows that she will have more to contend with than the competition for the apprenticeship.

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Mystic DragonMystic Dragon by Jason Denzel by Jason Denzel

Seven years have passed since lowborn Pomella AnDone became an unlikely Mystic’s apprentice. Though she has achieved much in a short time, as a rare celestial event approaches, Pomella feels the burden of being a Mystic more than ever. The Mystical realm of Fayün is threatening to overtake the mortal world, and as the two worlds slowly blend together, the land is thrown into chaos. People begin to vanish or are killed outright, and Mystics from across the world gather to protect them. Among them is Shevia, a haunted and brilliant prodigy whose mastery of the Myst is unlike anything Pomella has ever seen.

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People of the WolfPeople of the Wolf by W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O'Neal Gear by W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O’Neal Gear

In the dawn of history, a valiant people forged a pathway from an old world into a new one. Led by a dreamer who followed the spirit of the wolf, a handful of courageous men and women dared to cross the frozen wastes to find an untouched, unspoiled continent. Set in what is now Alaska, this is the magnificent saga of the vision-filled man who led his people to an awesome destiny, and the courageous woman whose love and bravery drove them on in pursuit of that dream.

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$2.99 December 2020 eBook Deals

Right in time for the holidays, we have five great ebooks on sale for $2.99 the whole month of December! From historical thrillers to captivating nonfiction, you’re sure to find something you’ll love.


Father of Lions by Louise Callaghan

Placeholder of  -58Father of Lions is the powerful true story of the evacuation of the Mosul Zoo, featuring Abu Laith the zookeeper, Simba the lion cub, Lula the bear, and countless others, faithfully depicted by acclaimed, award-winning journalist Louise Callaghan in her trade publishing debut.

Combining a true-to-life narrative of humanity in the wake of war with the heartstring-tugging account of rescued animals, Father of Lions will appeal to audiences of bestsellers like The Zookeeper’s Wife and The Bookseller of Kabul as well as fans of true animal stories such as A Streetcat Named BobMarley and Me, and Finding Atticus.

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Remembrance by Rita Woods

Place holder  of - 83Remembrance…It’s a rumor, a whisper passed in the fields and veiled behind sheets of laundry. A hidden stop on the underground road to freedom, a safe haven protected by more than secrecy…if you can make it there.

Ohio, present day
. An elderly woman who is more than she seems warns against rising racism as a young nurse grapples with her life.

Haiti, 1791, on the brink of revolution. When the slave Abigail is forced from her children to take her mistress to safety, she discovers New Orleans has its own powers.

1857 New Orleansa city of unrest: Following tragedy, house girl Margot is sold just before her promised freedom. Desperate, she escapes and chases a whisper…. Remembrance.

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People of the Canyons by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear

Image Place holder  of - 37In a magnificent war-torn world cut by soaring red canyons, an evil ruler launches a search for a mystical artifact that he hopes will bring him ultimate power—an ancient witch’s pot that reputedly contains the trapped soul of the most powerful witch ever to have lived.

The aged healer Tocho has to stop him, but to do it he must ally himself with the bitter and broken witch hunter, Maicoh, whose only goal is achieving one last great kill.

Caught in the middle is Tocho’s adopted granddaughter, Tsilu. Her journey will be the most difficult of all for she is about to discover terrifying truths about her dead parents.

Truths that will set the ancient American Southwest afire and bring down a civilization.

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The Stolen Gold Affair by Bill Pronzini

Poster Placeholder of - 93In response to a string of gold thefts in a Mother Lode mine, Quincannon goes undercover as a newly-hired miner to identify and capture the men responsible.

Meanwhile, Sabina finds herself not only making plans for her and Quincannon’s wedding, but also investigating both an audacious real estate scam and an abusive young man’s villainous secret.

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Blame the Dead by Ed Ruggero

Image Placeholder of - 16Sicily, 1943. Eddie Harkins, former Philadelphia beat cop turned Military Police lieutenant, reluctantly finds himself first at the scene of a murder at the US Army’s 11th Field Hospital. There the nurses contend with heat, dirt, short-handed staffs, the threat of German counterattack, an ever-present flood of horribly wounded GIs, and the threat of assault by one of their own—at least until someone shoots Dr. Myers Stephenson in the head.

With help from nurse Kathleen Donnelly, once a childhood friend and now perhaps something more, it soon becomes clear to Harkins that the unit is rotten to its core. As the battle lines push forward, Harkins is running out of time to find one killer before he can strike again.

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These sales end 12/31/2020 at 11:59 pm.

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$2.99 eBook Sale: May 2020

$2.99 eBook Sale: May 2020

Welcome, May! We’re celebrating the warmer weather with some new, month long ebook deals. Check out what Tor eBooks you can grab for $2.99 throughout the entire month below:

Place holder  of - 19People of the Songtrail by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear

On the shores of what is now northeastern Canada, a small group of intrepid settlers have landed, seeking freedom to worship and prosper far from the religious strife and political upheaval that plague a war-ridden Europe…500 years before Columbus set sail. While it has long been known that Viking ships explored the American coast, recent archaeological evidence suggests a far more vast and permanent settlement. It is from this evidence that archaeologists and early American history experts Kathy and Michael Gear weave their extraordinary tale.

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Image Place holder  of - 99The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

The traitor Baru Cormorant is now the cryptarch Agonist—a secret lord of the empire she’s vowed to destroy. Hunted by a mutinous admiral, haunted by the wound which has split her mind in two, Baru leads her dearest foes on an expedition for the secret of immortality. But Baru’s heart is broken, and she fears she can no longer tell justice from revenge…or her own desires from the will of the man who remade her.

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Placeholder of  -21Bowl of Heaven by Gregory Benford and Larry Niven

The limits of wonder are redrawn as a human expedition to another star system is jeopardized by an encounter with an astonishingly immense artifact in interstellar space: a bowl-shaped structure half-englobing a star, with a habitable area equivalent to many millions of Earths…and it’s on a direct path heading for the same system as the human ship.

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Poster Placeholder of - 11The Impossible Contract by K. A. Doore

An assassin’s reputation can mean life or death. This holds especially true for Thana Basbowen, daughter of the legendary Serpent, who rules over Ghadid’s secret clan of assassins. When a top-tier contract drops in her lap — death orders against foreign ambassador Heru Sametket — Thana seizes the opportunity. Yet she may be in over her head. Heru wields blasphemous powers against his enemies, and Thana isn’t the only person after his life: even the undead pursue him, leaving behind a trail of horror.

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Image Placeholder of - 52Knight of the Silver Circle by Duncan M. Hamilton

As the lines between enemy and ally blur, Guillot dal Villerauvais is drawn farther into the life and service he had left far behind. Solène attempts to come to terms with the great magical talent she fears is as much a curse as a blessing, while the Prince Bishop’s quest for power twists and turns, and takes on a life of its own. With dragons to slay, and an enemy whose grip on the kingdom grows ever tighter, Gill and his comrades must fight to remain true to themselves, while standing at the precipice of a kingdom in peril.

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Excerpt: People of the Canyons by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear

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In People of the Canyonsaward-winning archaeologists and New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear bring us a tale of trapped magic, a tyrant who wants to wield its power…and a young girl who could be the key to save a people.

In a magnificent war-torn world cut by soaring red canyons, an evil ruler launches a search for a mystical artifact that he hopes will bring him ultimate power—an ancient witch’s pot that reputedly contains the trapped soul of the most powerful witch ever to have lived.

The aged healer Tocho has to stop him, but to do it he must ally himself with the bitter and broken witch hunter, Maicoh, whose only goal is achieving one last great kill.

Caught in the middle is Tocho’s adopted granddaughter, Tsilu. Her journey will be the most difficult of all for she is about to discover terrifying truths about her dead parents.

Truths that will set the ancient American Southwest afire and bring down a civilization.

People of the Canyons will be available on June 23, 2020. Please enjoy the following excerpt.


One

Maicoh

When the gods close their eyes, the instant is unmistakable.

My heart suddenly thunders.

I cross my arms over my chest and sag against the towering canyon wall, struggling to stay upright.

The night sky is blacker than black, scattered with the blazing footprints of the dead.

Magnificent red sandstone cliffs border this valley. Two-thousand hand-lengths tall, they loom high above me. In my blurring vision, the gigantic rock pillars on the rim appear to sway back and forth, moving like a parade of monstrously deformed animals and people left from the Beginning Time.

I can’t stop it. The cascade in my souls begins …

The firelit village suddenly breathes, exhaling scents of food and sweating bodies, carrying the shrill music of drums and bone whistles that drifts from the crowded village plaza this autumn evening.

I force myself to focus on the chocolate-brown curve of the river that slithers snakelike through the scraggly cornfields and around the thirty pithouses that comprise OwlClaw Village. Partially subterranean and covered with a thick layer of earth, the pithouses are low humps, like giant anthills, scattered across the river terrace. Tonight, people lean against the sloping roofs to talk while they watch the festivities of the harvest ceremony. Ladders protrude from the centers of the roofs, allowing people to enter or exit the dwellings and smoke from the fires inside to escape.

Dogs run by.

Each moment is urgent now. I’m falling …

A woman laughs, and I see her step off a ladder onto a pithouse roof. Wreathed in firelight, she stands for a moment and looks around the village. She wears a gorgeous red cape made from the finest scarlet macaw feathers and carries a sprig of evergreen. Evergreens do not die in the winter, and every shaman predicts this will be a hard one. As she walks away, she holds one hand on her belly, and I think maybe she’s pregnant. Hard to tell with her cape. The wavering light of torches, carried by the dancers, flashes through her black hair. I stare for just an instant. Even less. But it’s too long.

The canyon wall tilts. The path heaves. The gods shove my soul into thin air.

Gasping, my body eats air as if it can’t get enough. So, in the beginning, there’s no fear. Just the light-headed sensation of tumbling through a vast abyss inside my own body.

My mind tries to make sense of it. One thought keeps repeating: My heart. What’s wrong with my heart?

All my life, my heartbeat has been the one friend that’s never left me. It’s always there, reminding me that I’m alive and can keep going through the masquerade of my daily routine. But now it has stopped. While I’m waiting to hit bottom, I’m not alive. Blood no longer pulses in my veins, which means the night is getting really cold, and the rigidity seeping through my flesh seems to be accelerated. As the seconds fly by, my stringy old muscles gradually turn to stone. When the paralysis is complete, even my eyes will be fixed in their sockets.

I stare at the children standing around the edges of the plaza. Their mouths hang open. The Deer Chief—beautifully dressed in white buckskin, with branching antlers mounted on his head—dances his way past them, as he retreats back to the underworld from which he came. His sacred gyrations have lent strength to Father Sun, so he may survive his long journey through the cold winter to come. Behind the Deer Chief, the six Horn priests dance, stamping their feet to shake the rattles on their legs. They move in single file, forming stunning, magical procession of phantasmal figures pounding their way along the cosmic path that leads into the deepest past of our People.

Such a dark, dark night. The feeble gleam cast by the slowly dying ritual fires can’t hold it back.

Why am I still here? Curiosity fills me. When I look down I can see my tall emaciated body—worn down to the bones by the ravages of time and truth—that resembles a painter’s sketch drawn on my buckskin clothing, shades of gray, a little hazy around the edges, arms locked across the chest. One of my legs is straight, the other bent slightly at the knee. The Falling hasn’t erased me yet. But it will. Makes no difference that my body stubbornly insists it’s still here in this world. I feel it seeping outside through the cracks in the light, trailing along the laughter and whistles of panpipes, sailing away on a red cape.

It always takes so long. The moments stretch. Be still. Let it happen.

When the bottom rises up, there will be a jolt, a bizarre aftershock, and my heartbeat will start again. But for now, my lungs are struggling. As though I’m underwater, my vision goes opaque. I must inhabit my death or this will never be over.

What surprises me is the power of my disbelief. I died the first time when I was twelve, but part of my brain still refuses to accept the truth. Not again, it says. I’m stronger than this. But as the protection of my body grows increasingly unreliable, my hold on humanity becomes as tenuous as a ghost’s.

Then it appears.

There, at the corner of my eye, the blaze flickers to life, and I faintly hear her deep voice. It’s tiny now, barely a whisper of flames. She is on a holy crusade. A fight to the death against horrific evil.

Don’t reach for it.

For the past week, her voice has been growing louder, so I’ve felt this coming, but arrival is always a luminous moment of revelation. I tuck my fists into my armpits and hug myself hard, trying not to listen to the faint words slipping from the blazing soul pot I carry in the sacred bundle tied to my belt.

With one hand against the canyon wall, I stagger down the dirt path that parallels the rugged sandstone cliff. I’m riding the lightning bolt now, zigzagging my way into the heart of the big explosion on the mountaintop. Much depends on what I see in the next few moments, or days. There is no telling how long this will take. Maybe I’ll be all right, and no one will die. At any point, the hunt could be sabotaged. Perhaps a man steps out of a pithouse at the wrong time or a child suddenly looks up at me, and I must walk by.

Except for her ghostly whisper and the erratic shuffles of my footsteps on the dirt, there is no sound. This is how it goes: She calls my name. My feet walk, and the world outside perishes in the onslaught of transformation. Dark shapes flash by in utter silence. I see them, but they do not seem to see me. Perhaps I’ve become invisible. I’ve often wondered.

As the instants pass, I force myself to go through the motions of the awakening that will come. Feel for a hold on the wall, clutch a crevice, and hang on tight. Maybe tonight I will simply walk away. But the flame of her voice … As it grows brighter, the world turns teeth-chatteringly cold. Finally, I can’t stop myself. I must reach out for her faint words. When I find them, they are shouts, and light explodes inside me, streaming up to shatter against the roof of my skull, then trickle down inside my head in brilliant rivulets, bathing my thoughts in frosty inhuman splendor.

My body slides down the canyon wall to sit on the ground, and I topple to my side, jerking like a clubbed rabbit.

A strange tranquility comes over me, smoothing out the edges, softening the horror. Is that what I really want? Just to die? To have this over with once and for all? No more struggling to decide if what she tells me is right or wrong. Besides … I deserve to die. My inadequacies, my crimes, are legion. The gods should not have let me live this long.

My body jolts, and my heart slams against my ribs. The hazy village goes quiet and still. People freeze in midstride, arms akimbo, heads tilted slightly to the left or right, mouths open. Their firelit faces seem carved of pale amber ice.

I try to stand up, to flee, but my legs are too weak to hold me up. I’m afraid. Always terribly afraid. Settle into the cradle and let it rock you until you fly apart. Don’t want to. Still quivering, the yawning blackness rushes toward me, and the dark night of the soul descends.

I hear quick steps approach. His cotton kirtle rustles. The long pole he holds before him is an elegant artifact, the legacy of his most ancient ancestors. It’s been polished with sunflower oil and shines like a sliver of firelight. A ceremonial fox skin and a bunch of hummingbird feathers dangle from the top of the pole: the crest of a dead war god who long ago marched upon villages far to the south.

Shaken, I manage to say, “I—I saw BoneDust. D—Did you?”

At this point, he is a dispassionate presence, unobtrusive and totally uninterested in the outcome of this struggle. I’m fighting for my life, and he stands by as a silent witness, fulfilling an ancient duty to gods I no longer believe in.

“Yes, I saw her. She’s finally alone, walking down the river trail. Slide your arm across my shoulders. We have to go find her now. Hurry!”

 

Two

Blue Dove 

The next evening …

As the sun sinks below the horizon, dusk settles across the canyon like a mantle of blue smoke, casting the thirty pithouses of OwlClaw Village into shadow. Halos of yellow firelight have just begun to seep up around the entry ladders. But it’s the stunning canyon that mesmerizes me. The towering red cliffs bend inward, hanging over this puny village as though yearning to tumble down and crush it to dust. When I tilt my head back far enough to see the rim, a heady mixture of awe and fear expands my chest. The growing darkness is progressively draining the life from the canyon, turning the sheer walls the deep crimson shade of old blood. It’s eerie. The cliffs whisper and whistle in the night breeze, discussing the world in a language unintelligible to humans. Perhaps they’re speaking to the last crickets singing in sheltered places down along the river?

People run across the plaza, heading for the trash heap where someone found a dead body. A woman in a red-feathered cape.

The stupid fool.

One moon ago, she conspired against the king of Straight Path nation, the Blessed Sun. Surely, she suspected that he’d sent her on this mission to get her out of Flowing Waters Town, so he could have her killed quietly? If he’d done it in town, there would have been questions. People would have been upset and desperate to find the murderer. Taking care of the problem out here, in the hinterlands of the Canyon People, neatly avoided all that.

Near the trash heap, a woman sobs.

I take a moment to arrange the turquoise hair combs that pin my black hair into a bun atop my head. At the age of twenty-six summers, I’m quite a beauty and use it to my advantage at every opportunity. Tonight, my cheeks are painted with parallel lines of white triangles. Blue circles ring my eyes. My small nose is entirely painted black. The magnificent beaded dress I wear beneath my rabbit-fur shawl marks me as a high-status woman from the Straight Path nation to the south, a nation currently embroiled in a brutal religious war: The old gods against the wicked half-human thlatsinas. For this critical night, I’ve taken great pains to look like a Sky Spirit come to earth.

A man shouts, “It’s BoneDust! Dear gods.”

Around the corpse, people gather to mutter and shriek. I keep walking with my head down.

These primitive people will assume it was revenge against the Blessed Sun, or maybe a simple clan vendetta. Maybe even a gambling debt gone wrong.

After all, ritual celebrations draw all manner of men, and crowds are perfect hunting grounds for the soul-sick. For the past few days, hundreds of unknown people have camped around the village enjoying the harvest festivities. They wander through the plaza and between the pithouses at all times of the day and night. Sometimes old scores get settled.

As more people run across the village toward the trash heap, I take the trail that leads to where the trading blankets are spread out at the edge of the rectangular plaza. With twilight upon them, the owners are in the process of closing for the day, repacking their goods in baskets they will carry back to their camps for the night. Only a few colorful blankets are still out. I pass crude pottery beakers from the south, tanned bighorn sheep hides, buffalo jerky from the north, heaping baskets of ricegrass seeds, tobacco leaves, squash, beans, and freshly picked corn, as well as a vast array of beautifully crafted stone beads. Men in bright headbands hurry by me.

I dally, wasting time, picking things up and putting them down. No point in rushing. His habits are as familiar to me as my own. Maicoh will not dare emerge from his cave until full dark.

At the bead maker’s blanket, I admire tiny shale beads from the Green Mesa Villages. Simply exquisite. The tiny hole in the center must have been drilled using cactus spines and fine sand as an abrasive. In the rear, lying near the seated maker, a necklace at least fifty hand-lengths long lies coiled. Made of blue and red stone beads, alternating with dried juniper berries, it’s actually quite ordinary. Any other day I wouldn’t look twice at it, but today the necklace sparkles as though crusted with frost.

“Will you trade that necklace—” I point—“for this bracelet?”

Removing the simple jet band with the turquoise centerpiece, I hand it to the woman. The bracelet is worth twenty times what the necklace is, but I’ve tired of it. I have so many bracelets; it has become hard to choose which to wear.

The bead maker’s eyes widen as she turns it over in her hands. She’s seen at least forty summers. Deep lines carve her tanned forehead. A red-and-black sash serves as her belt. “Happy to.”

The woman takes my bracelet and gives me the juniper berry necklace, which I drape around my neck.

“What’s happening over there?” The woman tips her chin toward the commotion.

“Man found a dead body. One of the Blessed Sun’s priestesses, I heard. Guess she traveled here on the king’s orders to ask the village council if she could build a kiva. You know, one of the subterranean ceremonial chambers down south where they worship the Flute Player, Thunderbird, and the Blue God?”

“Just now? They just found her?”

“Little while ago. Apparently, the killer shoved her body in the trash heap and covered it up. Somebody smelled it and started digging.”

Swallowing hard, the bead maker asks, “Do they know who did it?”

“No, but a man from Sage Village was roughing up some of the Bitter Water clan women last night. They’re searching for him.”

The bead maker looks frightened. “Soon as the king hears, there’ll be a war party headed in this direction. Someone’s going pay for this.”

“They certainly will.”

The woman whispers, “Do you think the news has already been received in Flowing Waters Town?”

Instinctively, I lift my gaze to the high point on the canyon rim where the signal station stands. Made of stacked red sandstone, it is a small fortress, two stories tall. During the day, messengers use polished pyrite mirrors to flash the news to other high signal stations across the canyon country. At night, they send fire signals. It takes less than one hundred heartbeats for messages to reach from here to Flowing Waters Town—and I dispatched the fire signal myself at midnight.

“I’m sure it has.” I smile, and the woman shrinks back like a packrat suddenly glimpsing a bobcat hidden in the brush.

Must be my eyes. On cool autumn evenings like this, my heightened senses are difficult to control. Colors are too brilliant, tastes too intense. Each new scent on the wind feels like a physical blow. Even the touch of the breeze on my skin is almost unbearably pleasurable. I know that my brown eyes have a bizarre feral glitter to them now.

A crowd of men in drab turkey-feather cloaks nod as they pass. One man turns all the way around to smile at me.

I walk away.

Three hundred and four paces. I count each one and halt.

There, like a solitary red eye in the canyon wall, stands the door to his cave, the cave he’s rented for the harvest festivities. People here rent out anything—their houses, caves, rockshelters, or old storage rooms, for which they charge exorbitant fees. The door is made of juniper poles knotted together with cotton cordage and painted the color of old blood. A small window, draped with tan-and-white packrat hide, has been cut in the door at eye level.

I hear the faint tinkling of shell bells, but all my attention is focused on the red door. Is Maicoh in there? Or out about town wearing a disguise? It’s dark enough now. He may be gone. He takes no chances when it comes to his identity. Fewer than a handful of people know anything about his past or what he looks like. But I have spies everywhere. I’ve made a study of the legendary witch hunter. He’s tall, slender to the point of being frail, in his late forties, with black eyes that can burn a hole straight through you. The more interesting tales claim that a blue cocoon of Spirit Power surrounds and protects him. Even more intriguing, he’s often seen in two or three places at once, as though he can simply cease to exist in one place and be reborn in another in an instant.

Turning onto the narrow dirt path that leads to his door, I fight to calm myself.

Wait. Wait.

Dead flowers, like frosty sticks, create a spiked hedgerow to either side of the door.

Breathing deeply, I mount the stone steps cut into the rock and tap lightly on the wood. The hide curtain in the small window sways. My spies tell me he has a weakness for women in distress, so that is the role I will play to gain entry.

Soft sounds inside. Hide boots scuff a stone floor. A male voice asks a question. Another man answers.

The door stays closed.

I shiver and watch my breath frost in the night air.

Down in the village, halos of firelight play on pithouse roofs, giving the darkening town a soft yellow glow.

I tap at the door again.

Still no answer.

Frustrated, I pound on the door and keep up the constant annoying racket for several hundred heartbeats.

By the time the hide curtain is pulled aside from the small window, I’m so excited I’m having trouble breathing.

“Go away.” He has a deep resonant voice.

“Please, it is urgent that I speak with you.”

The curtain slit grows wider, and I see one side of his face. Yes, forties with silver temples and a smooth pale face. His sunken eyes are puffy from lack of sleep. Bone rings grace the fingers that hold the curtain aside. He is, perhaps, the most feared man on earth. Certainly the most sought after.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Blue Dove. I apologize for not sending a messenger to tell you I was coming. But I must speak with you.”

His one eye scans my clothing. “You’re from the Straight Path nation.”

“Yes.”

“Why are you here?”

“I came to find you.”

His black eyes are obsidian-hard. I catch a glimpse of a hooded man a few paces behind him. He quickly steps out of view. His son? The rest of his family was murdered long ago.

“Have we met before?” He squints as though searching his memory.

“No, but I—”

“Then I’m sorry, but I’m leaving for the evening. Perhaps tomorrow—”

“I’m ashamed to say that I’ve had spies follow you several times, in many different villages. Forgive me for that.”

The dark eyes hold mine. “For what purpose?”

“I could not come to you when you last visited Straight Path Canyon. My husband would kill me if he knew I was speaking with you.” I have no husband. Not any longer. I took care of that unpleasant problem within two moons.

“I’ve never been to Straight Path Canyon, and I don’t know why you think I can help you, but—”

“Maicoh, please don’t force me to scream your name. You don’t need the attention, not in this village where no one knows who you truly are.” I pause. “Especially not with a murdered priestess on your hands.”

With sudden ferocity, he says, “You have mistaken me for another man. My name is Crane. I’m just a simple Healer. If you need a love potion or a charm, any of the village Heal—”

“I beg you to give me just a few moments.” My voice quavers as I spin around to search the darkness. “Please. My husband is occupied gambling down by the river, but if you do not help me, I’ll be dead by tomorrow.”

He lets the curtain fall closed and says something soft, presumably to the hidden man. Finally, the curtain pulls aside again. “Very well. I’ll see you for a moment. I apologize for being rude. Please, come in.”

“You are very kind.”

He pushes open the red door.

Stepping across the threshold is like entering a god’s bedchamber. A thrill surges through me. The cave smells of cottonwood smoke and leather. Only a few items are visible, a woven grass pot-rest where he places hot pots to cool, a neat line of children’s moccasins arranged along the far wall, a lovely human skull that has been polished to a high luster, the eye sockets stuffed with sacred sage. An elegant staff leans beside the moccasins, as though watching over them. A fox skin and a bunch of hummingbird feathers dangle from the top of the staff. Looks old, old as the world itself.

Somewhere to my left, a door has been opened, because a breeze blows through the cave. Of course, there’s another exit. He is rightly worried about being trapped.

“Let’s talk in the adjacent chamber,” he says. “We’ll be more comfortable by my fire.”

It’s barely noticeable, the way he lengthens the o in more and the stress on the second syllable in comfortable, rather than the first. He speaks the Canyon People’s language fluently, as I do, but traces of his true heritage linger. Maicoh is one of the Straight Path People. Or his parents, who taught him the language, were born there.

“I thank you.”

He leads the way into a smaller cave with a crack in the roof where the smoke from his fire escapes. Bighorn sheep hides cushion the floor around the fire, and a beautiful black pot, decorated with white diamonds, rests in the coals at the edge of the flames, keeping its contents warm. The pungent fragrance of juniper berry tea fills the air. When the flames flicker, a surreal gleam dances over the niches cut into the walls. Each niche holds a special offering: macaw feathers, nodules of turquoise, chunks of jet, bundles of Spirit plants, bowls filled with spiky datura seedpods.

He politely extends a hand to one of the sheep hides. “Please, sit. May I dip you a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you.”

Artfully, I remove my rabbit-fur shawl and preen before him, turning so that the firelight shimmers across my heavily beaded dress, before I sit down.

He looks so common—just a man in a drab antelope-hide cloak, not particularly special or dangerous. He’s thin, almost emaciated, little more than a walking skeleton. His cheekbones put out, and his black eyes sink into their sockets like those of a dead man. Oddly, his shoulder-length black hair and silver temples are his only attractive feature.

I’m disappointed. After all, I know him in a way no one else does. I’ve memorized his disguises and the seedy villages where he hides, the men and women he routinely calls upon, every piece of jewelry he owns, and the minutest details of his two good cloaks. In my mind’s eye, I watch him use his ancient painted staff like a sword, thrusting it forward, playfully swinging it around his head. On such occasions, he has long white hair, stands one hand-length taller, and marches like a warrior in his spider mask and gray deerhide cape.

That particular routine never varies. Staff. Spider mask. Gray deerhide cape. At other times, he appears as an elderly gray-haired beggar, a full hand-length shorter, wandering villages while mumbling to himself. He’s a genius at disguise. His work, after all, is delicate and dangerous.

“How may I help you?”

He sits down across the fire and dips himself a cup of tea. Left-handed. Thick scars on the wrist. At some time in the past, he must have tried to kill himself. Or perhaps he was captured and tortured by the barbarians to the north? I’ve heard that they bleed people to death. Slowly.

“I’ll be brief. I don’t wish to interfere with your evening plans. Will it be the slaves’ gathering at Ground Stone Creek tonight? Or are you meeting Elder Boll at Ten Bears ridge?”

He doesn’t blink. Just stares fixedly at me. “Do you follow your husband as well? No wonder he wants to kill you.”

“My husband doesn’t interest me. You’re the only man who interests me.”

There’s no expression on his face, only an eerie confidence centuries deep. “I assumed you needed a Healer for some injuries caused by your husband. If that is not true, then please leave. I have other duties—”

“I know who you are and what you do, Maicoh, orphaned son of the legendary villains Spots and Cactus Flower.”

His black eyes might be polished jet beads. He sits so still they catch the firelight and hold it like mirrors. “Were you paid to find Maicoh? If so, I can’t help you. I know nothing about him, except what everyone knows. He kills witches, which is why he is so feared, especially by those who are witches.”

“I wasn’t paid.”

“Just a curiosity seeker, then?”

“Of course not. I’m a messenger.”

Offhandedly, as though completely indifferent, he asks, “And what message do you carry for Maicoh?”

My gaze drifts around the cave, taking in the details, before I say, “Your father was the last person to see the Mountain Witch alive. That was thirty summers ago, wasn’t it?”

“I’ve told you, I am not—”

“Stop the charade. I have a proposition for you.”

“Not interested.” He starts to rise.

“You haven’t heard the proposition.”

“Won’t make any difference, so you can leave now. I really am in a hurry.”

When I make no move to rise and obey, he gets to his feet, grabs my arm in a rough grip, and drags me toward the door, where he shoves me out into the cold.

 

Copyright © Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear

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New Releases: 9/25/18

Vengeful by V.E. Schwab

Poster Placeholder of - 14 Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Great partnerships, now soured on the vine.

But Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she’s finally gained the control she’s always sought—and will use her new-found power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She’ll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other once more.

NEW IN PAPERBACK

Children of the Fleet by Orson Scott Card

The Mongrel Mage by L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Moon Hunt by Kathleen O’Neal Gear & W. Michael Gear

Severed by Kate Watterson

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Excerpt: This Scorched Earth by William Gear

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Image Placeholder of - 38 The American Civil War tore at the very roots of our nation and destroyed most of a generation.

To truly understand the madness and despair of such a horrendous conflict one needs to pick a moment.
Or see that war through one family’s eyes.

In rural Arkansas, such was the Hancocks. Devastated by a cruel war, they faced down their personal hells and in spite of it all survived. Their survival is a testament to the power of love…and the American spirit.

This is their story. And ours.

This Scorched Earth will be available on April 3rd. Please enjoy this excerpt.

1

April 12, 1861

Beginnings often hark back to a single, crystalline moment, as if it were a precursor for everything that followed. While mighty events unfold with what seems to be an inevitability, sometimes we are left to wonder at the implications of what seems a simple and inconsequential choice.

For Dr. Philip Hancock, that pivotal moment ocurred in the back room of an upper-class New Orleans brothel.

For the previous three years, Philip Hancock had lived in a low-ceilinged, poorly lit attic in Boston where he had been attending medical school. In those narrow confines he’d frozen through the bitter winters, only to roast during the brief respite of summer. Nevertheless, he’d completed his studies, and though opportunities had abounded for a physician in bustling Boston, he’d longed for the semiwilderness of northwest Arkansas—the land of his boyhood.

To Doc’s way of thinking, the fastest way home had been by sea on a merchant vessel loaded with textiles. Its next port: New Orleans. He’d only been able to afford a cheap berth, the bottommost hammock on a dark lower deck. Nevertheless, he’d completed the first leg of his journey and emerged in the sultry air of the New Orleans waterfront a free, and almost penniless, physician and surgeon.

As Doc had strolled down the wharves that morning, he had overheard a young boy—an apparent street urchin dressed in rags—calling to one of his friends, “Me? I can’t play today. I gotta find me a doctor for Miss Meg!”

Doc had signaled the boy, asking, “And what service might your Miss Meg require?”

The black-haired urchin had stared suspiciously at Doc’s surgical bag and cocked his head. Defiantly he had propped filth-encrusted hands on his skinny hips—a gesture no doubt mimicked from a much older man—in order to impart an air of importance.

“You can fix a man’s leg?”

“I can fix as much as any physician can,” Doc had replied. “Assuming your Miss Meg is financially solvent.”

The boy’s round and freckled face had puckered as if he were having trouble with the words “financially solvent.”

Eyes still fixed on Doc’s bag, he seemed to come to a decision. “Reckon you can make terms with Miss Meg. Foller me.”

The way had led up cobblestoned streets where old French buildings rose to brood, gray-walled, with intricate wrought-iron balconies opening to cramped second-story rooms.

Miss Meg’s occupied a neighborhood substantially higher in class than the waterfront where the urchin had been prowling.

Nevertheless, Doc had a moment of hesitation as the boy pointed him down a narrow alley, saying, “We gots ta go in the back.”

“The back?”

The boy nodded with serene gravity. “The front door is for gentlemen.” He emphasized “gentlemen” as if Doc might be just another bit of riffraff like himself.

Doc had suppressed a smile, following the urchin past piles of rotting horse manure that left a rainbowlike sheen across puddles of black water. Broken whiskey bottles had been kicked to the side, and the entwined reek of urine and excrement hung pungently in the air. In places, soot-stained white stucco had peeled like scabs from old wounds to expose the underlying brick.

The boy’s discreet knock at a blue plank door had summoned an overweight black woman in her late forties. Dressed in a dark blue cotton smock fronted by a stroud apron stained with grease, she smelled of frying bacon.

“I brought Miss Meg a doctor!” the boy crowed.

“You all’s a doctor?” the cook had demanded suspiciously as she stared Doc up and down. Her round face glistened with a sheen of perspiration. Before he could reply, she added, “Come on in. She be down the hall with Eli.”

Only after passing through the kitchen and entering a velvet-walled hallway had Doc pegged the establishment as a bordello. A rather more sophisticated example of the trade than the shabby cribs a block back from the wharfs, but a house nonetheless.

Even as Doc had stopped short in hesitation, Miss Meg had come rustling down the wallpapered hallway. The woman was dressed in crimson taffeta layered with watered silk, her high-piled hair accenting a patrician forehead, angular cheeks, and pointed jaw. She’d pinned Doc with a hard blue gaze that would have melted iron plate.

“Didn’t expect anyone this quickly. This way!”

Not the sort of woman to deny.

And he did need the money.

Resigned, Doc had followed Miss Meg to what appeared to be a cramped closet. Doc could have spit across the room’s long axis. The stale air reeked of unwashed human, the stench of corrupt flesh, and old misery. And now he found himself face-to-face with his patient. A sweating man on the table blinked, swallowed hard. His black eyes darted this way and that but seemed unable to focus.

Eli appeared to be in his late forties, emaciated; his sunken narrow cheeks and knobby chin sported a four-day beard. In the amber light cast by the four oil lamps set on wall sconces, perspiration gleamed on the man’s rounded forehead and around his glassy eyes. He wore only a smudged white shirt. Hairy bare legs protruded from beneath a gray blanket that draped his waist.

“Don’t you touch dat leg! I ain’t one of your girls what can be ordered around like a dog.” He shifted to free his right arm long enough to shake a finger at Doc, the burning sincerity behind his eyes like a fire of the will.

Doc took in the whitewashed, rough-cut walls. A stained plank floor supported the raised table with its hanging leather straps. The stench of rot intensified in the sweltering air. In the lamplight the man’s left leg—swollen, blackened, and stinking—extended beyond the table’s edge.

Miss Meg, or Madam de Elaine, as she’d introduced herself, closed the door behind her to block the view from the small hallway. As news of Doc’s arrival spread, it had filled with women-dressed as tarts who craned their necks to see into the confining room.

“What do you think, Doc?” Miss Meg’s voice, softer now, was thick with the rasp of whiskey and cigar smoke.

Doc pushed a lock of dark blond hair off his brow and opened his surgical bag where it rested on the room’s one rickety wooden chair. With the door closed, the air thickened with burned oil and the cloying smell of gangrene. He needed but one look at the grossly swollen foot to see sharp fragments of bone protruding from a black scab that leaked yellow pus.

“Cut dat leg and the world gonna go crazy,” the man insisted as he began shaking his head in violent swings.

“Eli,” she told him, “the only thing crazy in here is you.”

For a woman closing on forty, Madam de Elaine might have passed as ten years younger had Doc not seen her in the light of day. Her makeup had been artfully applied; her thick black locks were curled, piled up, and held in place with diamond-studded tortoiseshell combs. She’d slipped a no-nonsense apron similar to the cook’s over her crimson dress.

Given the stout leather straps and buckles dangling below the table, and the positioning of the four lamps, Doc realized Madam de Elaine was no stranger to ad hoc medical procedures in her back room.

This is not the reason I studied medicine.

He fought down his sudden distaste. This was the sort of place Paw would have frequented. Doc had spent most of his life struggling to outrun his father’s shadow. The flight had taken him all the way to Boston and the finest medical school in the land. Paw, of course, had paid for the schooling, but Philip had always wondered if it had been because of guilt, or as a final slap in the face. Whichever, the son need never emulate his dissipated and morally bankrupt sire.

I am a gentleman surgeon!

“Yes, tell yourself that,” he murmured, pulling out his instruments.

“Tell yourself what?” Miss Meg asked. Her gaze narrowed. “You sure you’re a physician? A mite young, aren’t you?”

“You ain’t touching dis leg,” crazy Eli protested yet again. “Better you all let me die with dis leg. Take it off and nothing gonna be the same ever again. Madness. You all hear? Gonna be madness if’n you cut my leg.”

“Madam de Elaine,” Doc began, opening his bag, “I’m going to need you—”

“In this room? Given what we’re about? Best call me Meg.” She gestured toward the straps. “You want me to buckle him down?”

“Maybe after I’ve administered the anesthetic.”

“Don’t know that I want to pay for chloroform or ether.”

Doc met her hard eyes. “I’m not cutting a man’s leg off while he’s awake.” Then he added, “Meg.”

She winced, nodded. “Very well.”

“Don’t do it! It be your fault!” Eli tried to struggle up from the table, reaching out with an imploring hand.

“Easy, Eli,” Meg told him as she stepped over to the bed and laid a hand on his forehead. “No one’s going to do anything you tell them not to.”

Doc shot her a sidelong glance. The lie had rolled so smoothly off her tongue. But then perhaps such facile prevarication came with her profession. He tried not to imagine all the things that had passed between those shapely rouged lips as he reached for his bottle and cloth.

Eli seemed to relax, dropped back on the table, his cracked and dry lips working. Anxious black eyes jerked back and forth, as though following fevered delusions.

“I seen it in my dreams, ma’am,” Eli whispered. “Clear as you right now. All the world was right while I was dying. Flowers, they growed. Children was a-playing, doing chores. Young people, they’s a-paying court, and young love was a-blooming.” He swallowed hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. “It come out of the darkness, a gleaming silver blade. Then … swish. And it done took my leg.”

“What happened then, Eli?” Meg asked.

“The moment my leg dropped away, the blood started. World went crazy. Shooting, yelling, screaming, and dying. Wasn’t just New Orleans, ma’am. No, it was the whole country. Men and boys, their arms and legs popping off their bodies like ticks off a hot plate. Not just no handful, neither, but by the thousands. Maybe tens of thousands, filling fields with legs and arms and heads popping right off their bodies. Crazy, I tell you. Plumb crazy.”

He stared up at her face, panic-glazed eyes probing hers. “You gotta believe me, ma’am. You promise me you don’t cut my leg.”

She patted him on the bony shoulder. “Nothing’s going to be your fault, Eli. Doc’s here to take a look, that’s all. He’s going to make you well.”

Eli sagged in apparent relief. “Thank you, ma’am. Gotta tell you, I’s plumb scared.”

Doc dosed his cloth, stepped past Meg, and said, “Eli? I need you to smell this cloth. It will make you sleep.”

“Don’t want to smell no—”

“This is an order, Eli,” Meg told him sharply. “You want to stay on here, you gotta get well. Now, pull your weight and smell the cloth.”

Eli blinked, allowing Doc to place the cloth over his nose and mouth.

“Breathe deeply, Eli,” Doc told him. “That’s it. No, don’t struggle. Just breathe.”

Doc waited, finishing his count. Removing the rag, he checked Eli’s breathing and heart.

“You’re good at that, Dr. Hancock. And at so young an age? I wasn’t certain when you knocked on my door.”

He gave her a wistful smile. “I studied medicine and surgery for three years in Boston.” He had observed and assisted on several amputations. This would be the first one he’d attempted on his own. He hoped Madam de Elaine remained blissfully ignorant of his tension.

“Your accent?” she mused. “Arkansas?”

“Very good. You have no idea how hard I have to work to keep the backwoods twang out of my voice.” He rubbed his sweaty hands. Nerves. God, he hated the jitters. Eli’s ravings about chaos hadn’t helped.

Come on, Philip. Buck up. You know what to do.

“Arkansas to Boston to New Orleans? You travel, Doctor.” She bent to retrieve the first of the heavy leather straps, and in moments had competently buckled Eli’s passive body into the restraint.

“I think I inherited the wanderlust from my father. As much as he claimed to love the farm, he loved being away from it even more.”

“He was a surgeon as well?”

A smile thinned his lips. “If he’s anything, he’s a rogue and scoundrel. An irresponsible womanizing freebooter.”

Doc squinted in the lamplight as he palpated Eli’s gangrenous leg. “Do I want to know what you use this table and those straps for?”

“What does it look like?” Meg ripped the blanket from Eli’s hips, leaving him naked from the waist down. Businesslike, she positioned his good right leg to the side and tightened it in a strap.

“I’d say you terminate the occasional pregnancy here.”

“That and dose the girls for the clap when they need it. The straps keep the girls from moving at the wrong moment.” She pinned him with her icy gaze. “I wouldn’t like that to be talked about around town. If that’s going to be a problem for you…”

Laying out his instruments, and hoping his hands wouldn’t shake, Doc replied, “Impecunious young physicians, fresh off the boat, and new in town, should not consider themselves too high-and-mighty.”

Her lips curled in a world-weary smile. “Then I guess we see eye to eye.”

He removed the tourniquet from his bag and unwound the strap. “Not that Paw ever let us develop what he called airs.”

She had bound Eli’s left thigh to the table. “Sounds like an interesting man, this father of yours.”

“Interesting covers a lot of territory.” Doc tied on his apron. “I’m taking it at the knee.”

“Do what you must.”

“You don’t have to watch this.” Doc positioned his tourniquet, taking his time to screw it tight on Eli’s skinny thigh.

“You’re right. I don’t.” She crossed her arms beneath her full breasts and fixed her hard gaze on Eli’s ruined foot and ankle.

Doc picked up his knife, reflexively wiping it on his apron. Don’t think. Just do it.

Doc’s blade traced a deep U in Eli’s skin to create enough excess flap to cover the stump. He shot a sidelong glance at Meg, her blue eyes unflinching, face expressionless. Given other things she’d seen, perhaps an amputation wasn’t among the worst.

How many girls have died on this table?

“Boston?” Meg mused. “What were they saying about secession up there?”

“Some are saying good riddance. Others are calling for troops to ‘put down the rebellion.’ Most, quite honestly, don’t care if the country splits or not. Were it not for the abolitionists and Mr. Lincoln’s rhetoric, my guess is that we’d be allowed to go peacefully. Still might as long as some lunatic doesn’t start shooting at federal forces.”

She spared him an inquisitive look. “And why did you choose Boston?”

“The best medical schools are there.” Doc concentrated as he separated the thick web of ligaments around the knee. Synovial fluid drained like water as he punctured the joint. To his relief, the sepsis hadn’t spread past the calf muscles. “After completing my studies I wanted to come home. The first ship bound for a Southern port was headed to New Orleans. Which brings me to your back room and Eli’s gangrenous leg.”

“Eli lives under the stairs,” she told him. “He’s harmless, mostly. Just moon-touched crazy. Sees things that aren’t there. Carries on conversations with invisible people. But you tell him to clean the floor? He pitches in and cleans and cleans. No letup until it’s spotless. If I tell him to comb the carpets in the salon, or dust the shelves, it’s done. And best of all, he’s never pestering the girls for as much as a yank on his johnson.”

“How did this happen?” Doc indicated the gangrenous lower leg.

“Moving a new cast-iron cookstove into the kitchen. Eli’s not the strongest of men. He was on the downstairs end. Dropped it.” She quickly added, “He wouldn’t countenance the notion of having someone look at it. Didn’t know how bad it really was till we cut his shoe off the next morning. Should have called for a physician then. But he insisted we leave him be. That it would heal.”

“It might not have made any difference, as badly as his foot is crushed.”

She raised an expressive eyebrow. “He kept insisting it was getting better, and I had more important things to do than keep track of his foot.”

Doc’s quick hands cut the last of the ligaments, and he caught the deadweight of the severed limb. He gently lowered it into a bucket placed conveniently beneath the table. One that had no doubt caught many an unwanted fetus.

A muffled bang, as if from a pistol shot, carried from the street. Then another and another. Meg stepped to the door, opened it a crack, and called, “Hattie? Go see what the commotion is about. If it’s a fight, lock our front door.”

“Yes’m.”

The lower leg looked oddly forlorn where it canted in the bucket. “Well, there you go, Eli. The leg’s gone, and the world is just the same as it was before.”

Meg grunted. “I guess I can’t very well order Eli to carry his own leg out, can I?”

“I’ll see to it,” Doc told her as he slipped silk suture over his tenaculum, the surgical hook. He used it to fish the arteries from the surrounding muscle. Sliding the surgical silk down, he carefully used it to ligate each of the major blood vessels.

She pursed her lips as if the notion were just sinking in. “How long until he can work again?”

“Maybe a month if there are no complications. The stump will have to heal. Keep him quiet and immobilized in a well-aired room to prevent the development of noxious effluvia. Expect fever for the next week or so. Dressings will need to be changed until the pus stops draining. It should be clear. You’ll know from the smell if anything goes amiss. At the end of the month, you’ll have to fit him with a prosthesis to—”

“A what?”

“A peg leg.”

Her lips soured. “But he can still work?”

Doc pulled the flap taut and began to suture. “Physically he’ll be a little slower. Expect him to be clumsy for the next six months. It takes a while to learn to balance and move with a prosthesis.”

She turned her thoughtful gaze on him. “That was quickly done. I didn’t know a leg could come off that fast.”

“I grew up on a farm. Butchering pigs, deer, sheep, and cattle. Paw had me learning anatomy from a medical book, cutting up critters and comparing their innards with human internal organs.” He smiled, delighted with himself. She apparently had no idea how nervous he’d been. “There’s not that much difference.”

“You thinking of staying in New Orleans? Having just lost our old physician to the yellow fever, I’d be willing to offer you regular work here, checking the girls, dealing with our … special needs?”

Me? Service a bawdy house? Never again.

He finished his last knot. Bent down. Studied his suture. After wiping his hands on his apron, he slowly began unscrewing the tourniquet. A faint weeping of blood oozed along the incision’s margins. This was the critical moment. Would the ligated arteries hold?

“Let me guess,” Meg said tartly. “Your mother also taught you how to sew?”

“My father, actually. Harnesses, moccasins, and such. Life beyond the frontier taught him the skill, and he swore no son of his would ever be in a position where he couldn’t ‘repair his possibles’ should the need arise.”

Doc made quick work bandaging Eli’s stump.

“Quite the man, this brigand father you so despise. Returning to my query. My girls are in need of a new physician. Young and handsome as you are—”

“I’m honored by your offer,” he lied.

I’ll see myself in hell before I lower myself to working in a brothel again!

He’d never so much as set foot in a whorehouse before—and before God and the angels, he’d be damned if he’d ever do so again. That was Paw’s realm, after all.

He began picking caked blood from his fingers, still alert for the sudden rush should one of his ligatures fail. “Hopefully, I’m only going to be in New Orleans long enough to find a boat headed upriver. With the uncertainty of secession, I’d like to see my family again. It’s been more than four years.”

Then he added, “Assuming, that is, that Father’s not home. Which, I must admit, is a high probability given his affinity for being anywhere else.”

She smiled faintly, an amused look on her face. “But Arkansas?”

“Even worse, western Arkansas.” Doc paused at her expression. “And it’s true: as appalling as travel is in Arkansas, the politics are, indeed, even worse. Now, if someone could bring me a pan of water, I’d like to clean my instruments and hands.”

“Of course.” She opened the door, calling to someone out of sight. Then she turned back. “So that’s it? Off to wild Arkansas to become a surgeon? They don’t pay. Not even in Little Rock with its … what? Three thousand people? New Orleans, especially with the secession, will become the most powerful city in the Confederacy. Probably even become the capital as soon as this asinine notion of placing it in Montgomery over in Alabama wears off.”

“I’ve no doubt that you’re right. My dream, Madam de Elaine, is a small surgical practice. One where I can be close to the country. Hunt, fish, raise a family, and perhaps dabble in good blooded horses.”

He smiled at her as he checked Eli’s pulse and breathing. “If I share anything with Paw, it’s that I need a bit of wilderness. Paw settled in Arkansas, so he says, because it still has mountains and Indians, but with warmer winters and closer access to trade goods.”

She vented a disbelieving sigh. “Well, what will it be then? Cash?” She narrowed her eye into a near wink. “Or could we interest you in a bit of trade? You, being a surgeon and all, should know your way around a female body. I’ll have the girls—”

“Again, no disrespect, but cash would be preferred.” He paused. “If I catch the spring-full rivers just right, I might make it all the way to Little Rock by boat.”

“Very well.” She nodded politely before stepping out. On her heels a young mulatto woman entered and set a pan of water on the rickety chair. Doc began washing the blood off his equipment and hands. He glanced at Eli, slumbering in drugged bliss.

What was it about the insane that they concocted such peculiarities of imagination?

Not my problem. I’m a surgeon. Destined to deal with medicine’s higher and most noble calling.

Out in the hall, a young woman shouted, “It’s war! In Charleston they’re firing on Fort Sumter!”

Doc buckled up his surgical bag and reached down for the bucket with Eli’s leg. He’d need a place to discard it, wishing the brothel had a garden. The outhouse would have to do.

“Hooraw!” another woman shouted in the hallway.

Bag in one hand, bucket in the other, Doc stepped out into the hallway.

“They’re bombarding the Yankees!” one of the more buxom of the belles cried. She was a round-faced blonde, her cheeks rouged. “They’re shouting it in the streets. The South Carolinians are going to war!”

“Get your rest while you can, girls,” a thin black-haired young woman called drolly. “The loyal gentlemen of New Orleans will be primed for celebrating until long after dawn. And very free with their money, if I’m any judge.”

“War in the distance,” a redhead chortled, “profits in hand.”

Doc glanced down at the bucket where the limp leg leaked blood and fluid.

 

Copyright © 2018 by W. Michael Gear

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New Releases: 11/21/17

Image Placeholder of - 78 Moon Hunt by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear

Moon Hunt is the third epic tale in the Morning Star series by New York Times bestselling authors W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear. Against the intricate majesty that was America’s greatest pre-Columbian city, the Gears have once again woven the latest archaeological data into a painstakingly accurate reconstruction of Cahokia and provide a rare look into the mystical underpinnings of Native American culture.

What happens when your god goes missing?

NEW IN MANGA:

Plum Crazy! Tales of a Tiger-Striped Cat Vol. 3 Story and art by Hoshino Natsumi

Slumbering Beauty Vol. 1 Story and art by Yumi Unita

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7 Books by Writing Duos

Sometimes two really is better than one. Writing can be a lonely pursuit, but not for these dynamite duos – with their powers combined they can create stories that are twice as amazing. From the historical mysteries by Rosemarie and Vince Keenan (known as Renee Patrick) to the quarter-century partnership between Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, here’s a selection of titles that show what happens when writers partner up.

American Drifter by Heather Graham and Chad Michael Murray

Placeholder of  -56New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham has teamed up with celebrated actor Chad Michael Murray. The two met through Graham’s daughter, and after discussing Murray’s idea for a book, they decided it was a match made in heaven! The result is a novel of passion and danger in the captivating thriller, American Drifter, the story of young army veteran River Roulet and the enchanting Natal, the journalist he falls in love with.

Dangerous To Know by Renee Patrick

Renee Patrick is the pseudonym for married authors Rosemarie and Vince Keenan. The two teamed up to write the Edith Head and Lillian Frost mystery series, bringing to life glitz and glamour of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Dangerous to Know is the second installment in this series, starring aspiring actress Lillian Frost as well as well known historical Hollywood figures Edith Head, Jack Benny, George Burns, Marlene Dietrich, and more.

City of Endless Night by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Poster Placeholder of - 81Doug Preston and Lincoln Child have been writing novels together for more than twenty-five years. Over that time, their process has changed, but the result hasn’t—Agent Pendergast has been hailed as a “ruthless descendant of Holmes” by Publishers Weekly, and has become one of crime fiction’s most enduring characters. How do they do it? Lincoln Child says it’s easy, so long as you respect your partner and are willing to accept criticism and learn from them. Here’s to many more years of collaboration, and many more Pendergast novels!

Moon Hunt by Kathleen O’Neal Gear & W. Michael Gear

Image Place holder  of - 64 In addition to being married, New York Times bestselling authors Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear have written more than thirty novels together across genres. Their first collaborations were written in a tiny Colorado cabin with no running water and only wood stoves for heat. Their latest, Moon Hunt, is the third epic tale in the Morning Star series about Cahokia, America’s greatest pre-Columbian city.

Without Mercy by Col. David Hunt & R.J. Pineiro

Place holder  of - 93Some writing partnerships are all about what you can bring to the table. In the case of Col. David Hunt and R.J. Pineiro, one brought the real-world knowledge and the other the writing chops of an acclaimed writer. The result is Without Mercy, a terrifying and topical thriller that feels like it could happen at any minute. When ISIS detonates nuclear weapons in two key American strongholds, the United States plunges into chaos and the CIA scrambles to prevent a third tragedy.

Never Never by James Patterson & Candice Fox

Image Placeholder of - 61James Patterson is famous for collaborating with a huge variety of authors. He’s worked with Maxine Paetro, Michael Ledwidge, Mark T. Sullivan, and many, many, many others. He’s got a tried-and-true process: Patterson provides a detailed outline, sometimes as long as 80 pages, and then his co-author starts writing chapters. Weekly phone calls between the collaborators contain honest feedback and discussion of the project, resulting in consistently amazing commercial fiction. We particularly like his collaborations with Candice Fox. The Detective Harriet Blue series is hard-boiled crime with an Australian background and a likeable main character.

The Dangerous Ladies Affair by Marcia Muller & Bill Pronzini

The Dangerous Ladies Affair by Marcia Muller and Bill PronziniMarcia Muller and Bill Pronzini are, so far as we know, the only living couple to share the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. They also share books, partnering up to write the charming historical mystery series Carpenter and Quincannon. Muller writes Carpenter’s viewpoint and Pronzini writes Quincannon’s in a brilliant collaboration from a longtime couple and writing team. The Dangerous Ladies Affair is the most recent novel featuring the firm of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services.

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Getting Lost on the Sacred Journey

Poster Placeholder of - 24 Written by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear

Anthropologists have a fascination with myth that traces its origins back to the late nineteenth century. Then in 1949 Joseph Campbell published his classic The Hero With A Thousand Faces, in which he codified the origins and framework for the classic hero’s tale in Western literature. Film producer George Lucas popularized Campbell’s work when he acknowledged that he’d relied heavily on Hero With a Thousand Faces in the writing of Star Wars. This wasn’t the first time the study of mythology provided the roots for a modern classic. J.R.R. Tolkien relied on ancient Norse religion—sprinkled with some Celtic overtones—as the basis for his Ring trilogy.

We envy Lucas, Tolkien, and the authors of modern fantasy, all of whom draw upon the trove of Western myths and tropes. Whether it be from the Icelandic Sagas, Beowulf, Homer, or the Bible, they have a written body of lore from which to draw. Thus we all know that special powers can be imparted to blades, to be careful of what you wish for amongst the standing stones, and that one must beware when a serpent offers you an apple while you’re lounging in the garden. You can always trace the origins of the story to its roots. In the case of Gilgamesh, you can even go back to the original cuneiform.

In our Morning Star series the interpretation of the myth gets a little more dicey. The books are set in ancient Cahokia, a place for which we have no written records. The thousand-year-old metroplex straddled the Mississippi River where St. Louis stands. At its height, Cahokia was larger than contemporary London, Paris, and Rome combined. It also had a much higher standard of living. The houses were warmer, the food was better, and people didn’t empty their chamber pots into the streets for their neighbors to wade through.

European cultural traditions go back to the Middle East, Sumer, Egypt, and Greece; in North America the cradle of civilization lies in the lower Mississippi Valley where people began building earthen pyramids 6,000 years ago. The culture spread up the rivers, eventually creating the Poverty Point culture 3.500 years ago, the Hopewellian interaction @ 2000 years ago, and finally what we call the Mississippian culture which reached its fluorescence at the great city of Cahokia. Think of Cahokia’s influence on North America as you think of Rome’s impact on Europe. For three hundred years, it was the big dog, and after it fell, the kingdoms that followed existed as its cultural heirs until the arrival of de Soto in 1539.

Because Cahokians built with wood and thatch in a wet and acidic woodland, it’s tough to piece together their physical culture. Except for a few freak examples of preservation, we don’t have their remarkable fabrics, exquisite wooden furniture, carvings, monumental statuary, or paintings. But the most vulnerable part of their culture is the one we’re interested in: the mythology.

How can we write the story of a vanished people without their myths, legends, and tales?

It’s an incredible challenge, an intricate, puzzling, mystery. And the miracle is that through dedicated scholarship, we can recreate the bare bones. Starting in the 1800s ethnographers scrambled to record Native American stories before they vanished. Hidden away in the musty old Bureau of American Ethnography volumes are recorded tales of the Chickasaw, Creek, Yuchi, Shawnee, Osage, and so many others.

The stories and myths differ across the various cultures and regions of eastern North America. But through painstaking comparison, there are similarities that hint of antiquity. For example, the story of the hero twins is universal.

The next clues come from archaeology—the actual excavation of artifacts. Sometimes we get entire statues, or maybe it is only a shell carving, or a copper relief that depicts a mythological figure. Additionally, we have pictographs preserved in caves: images we can tie back to the stories.  Date the artifact or drawing, and we can date the age of the story.

So, what have we been able to reconstruct? First, the Cahokians had a three-tiered universe of Sky World, Middle World, and Underworld. The sky was inhabited by remarkable creatures like the two-headed eagle Hunga Auito. Then came the Thunderers, who cast lightning bolts at their nemeses in the Underworld. Four great ivory-billed woodpeckers stood at each of the cardinal directions and powered the winds with their wings. The sun and moon were Powers in their own right, and their movements across the sky—along with the constellations—underlay the entire society.

The Middle World was the surface of the earth with its own Powers, typified by animals and plants, as well as “little People”, witches, and magical beings like Stone Man. Plants were particularly important. Think not only food, but medicinal and spiritual—like sacred datura that plays such an important role in the books.

The Underworld had its own magical creatures like the Underwater Panther, Horned Serpent, Snapping Turtle, and the Tie Snakes who lived under rivers and in deep springs.

It was considered calamitous to mix the Powers from the different worlds—and not only the priesthood, but special societies with secret initiations studied and dedicated themselves to the understanding and propitiation of the different spiritual forces.

This is the heart of the third Morning Star book, Moon Hunt. From both the historical stories of the Muskogean peoples and the images in art recovered from archaeological sites in Georgia and Alabama, we know that the sphinx moth was special. Not only was it a creature of darkness, but it subsisted on Powerful spirit plants like datura, tobacco, and nightshade. An iconic image depicts Morning Star in battle with a sphinx moth. In his right hand, he holds the moth by its proboscis, in his left is a sacrificial knife. (See the Moon Hunt cover.)

As Moon Hunt opens, a disgraced young noble woman, Whispering Dawn, is being transported to Cahokia against her will. Her father is sending her to wed the Morning Star. Not only is she married to a rebel people’s young lord, but she’s an initiate of the Sacred Moth society. No sooner is she promised to Morning Star, than she is coerced into assassinating him. Infusing his drink with datura nectar, she unwittingly sends his soul to the Underworld.

Remember when we said mixing Powers was very bad? Morning Star is a Sky World being. So, when Sacred Moth carries his soul to the Underworld, all chaos is unleashed on the Cahokian world.

In the Morning Star novels we delight in bringing back colorful and enchanting creatures like Piasa, Horned Serpent, Sacred Moth, the Morning Star himself, and the rich and wonderful creatures that made up the Cahokian world. As you read Moon Hunt, we hope you find this lost America as fascinating as we do.

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Excerpt: Moon Hunt by Kathleen O’Neal and Michael Gear

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Moon Hunt is the third epic tale in the Morning Star series by New York Times bestselling authors W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear. Against the intricate majesty that was America’s greatest pre-Columbian city, the Gears have once again woven the latest archaeological data into a painstakingly accurate reconstruction of Cahokia and provide a rare look into the mystical underpinnings of Native American culture.

What happens when your god goes missing?

The lord god of Cahokia has been spirited away to the Underworld and the empire teeters on the brink of disaster as clans fight for control.

Night Shadow Star, the god’s human sister, and Fire Cat, her warrior bodyguard, are the only two people who can bring him back. They descend into the Sacred Cave where monsters dwell, willing to sacrifice themselves to save their kingdom.

What they find makes them question if that sacrifice is worth it.

Moon Hunt will be available on November 21st. Please enjoy this excerpt.

The Harrowing

I run my fingers through damp and sandy soil and listen to the sounds of the night. The canoes are pulled up on the beach, and I can hear waves slapping against the sterns. An endless blanket of stars gives the night sky a frosted look. The whitish band running across the heavens marks the Road of the Dead—the path taken by so many of my ancestors after their souls traveled to the western edge of the world and made the leap through the Seeing Hand and into the Sky World.

I wonder if I will ever follow in their footsteps, or if I even want to.

I reach up and rub my thin face, feeling the high cheekbones, the triangle of my nose, and point of my chin. I force myself to smile, and know that it makes my broad mouth into a rictus mindful of a death mask. Some call me a beautiful young woman. Who are they trying to fool?

For the moment, all that matters is my deep, burning anger. Call it an inferno between my souls. A hot, roaring, devouring kind of fire.

I stare out at the river, which is nothing more than an inky darkness in the night. I hear a fish splash, the croaking of a thousand frogs, and the whir of the night insects. Even through the pungent tang of the greasy puccoon-root mosquito repellent that I’ve slathered over my skin, I smell the musky scent of river, of willows, and cottonwoods along the bank.

I think of the Powers inherent to water—of the Tie Snakes who live in the river’s depths, and Snapping Turtle, and the Underwater Panther. I think of the stories told by Albaamaha elders late at night. Of men who swam down into the depths and darkness and became Tie Snakes themselves.

Since the night I drank the nectar, I, too, have become a being of darkness. Ultimately, the nectar will be my weapon of revenge.

War Leader Strong Mussel barks a laugh—the sound of it as disturbing to me as the cracking of a wooden beam. I really hate that man. Him, and all the warriors that my father sent to “escort” me to my new home. To the husband I am promised to marry.

My father? He is White Water Moccasin of the Chief Clan, high minko, or supreme ruler, of the Sky Hand people. My mother is Evening Oak of the Raccoon Clan, who serves the people as high matron.

It is to be my “honor.” Those are my mother and father’s words. The verdict and order of my lineage and clan. Their ultimate betrayal after I came so close to escaping.

I still don’t know how it went wrong. Just an accident of circumstance? Or Power inserting itself into my life?

Power can be such a capricious force, working for its own purposes. Changing lives. Playing with someone like me as if I were nothing but a toy dangled from a string. I’d made it. Escaped. Run away with young Straight Corn. We were free, taken in among the forest Albaamaha.

For those few months, we lived the rapture of our love, sharing laughter, smiles, hopes, and exploring our bodies.…

But I lose the thread of my thoughts. I need to concentrate on where I am and why. It’s been twenty days now since leaving Split Sky City. I have been paddled up the Black Warrior River, carried across the portage and through the T’so lands, and down to the Tenasee River. From there my seemingly inexhaustible guards raced downriver to the Mother Water. After resting for a day at its confluence with the Father Water—and visiting with the passing Traders—we’re heading up the great river.

This night we are camped below what are called the chains, a rocky constriction in the Father Water’s channel. Immediately east and behind our small camp, a gray, moss-covered, sandstone bluff rises. Its base is choked with brush, its top forested with oak, maple, ash, and hickory trees.

Our camp is positioned on the sloping bank of the river—a narrow, sandy strip of low-terraced beaches left by the falling water lines. War Leader Strong Mussel has ordered my bed to be placed between the fire and the canoes, where it is illuminated by the crackling bonfire. The rest of the warriors surround me in a half circle, barring any chance of escape into the willows just up from the beach.

As if I could get away in the first place. Strong Mussel has tied a rawhide leash to my right ankle. He cleverly poured water onto the complicated knots, which caused them to shrink so tightly I’d need a couple of hands of time and the use of a pointed hardwood stick or a sliver of bone to work them loose. No fool, he checks my tether every night and again the next morning.

I could cut the strap with a sharp stone or a flake of bone, but they search the ground carefully before each camp. I never have less than three sets of eyes on me at any given time.

My people are the Sky Hand Moskogee. Masters of the raid and war. We are adept at taking and transporting desperate prisoners over long distances. Once upon a time, I took pride in that, having watched our victorious warriors returning from distant raids, parading their prisoners before them. Now I stare longingly at the darkness, wishing I was just beyond the fire’s gleam. Out there, where I could vanish into the night and fade into nothingness.

My party of warriors might be called an “escort,” and I might be the first daughter of White Water Moccasin, of the Chief Clan’s ruling lineage. My uncle, who is mother’s brother, or mosi, might be the tishu minko, or second chief of the Sky Hand people. I might indeed be the second-most important woman in my people’s world, but after what I have done, Father, Uncle, and Mother consider me a disgrace. A scandal to be dispensed with, eliminated, and forgotten. All of which means I am as desperate a prisoner as these veteran and blooded warriors have ever transported.

I listen to an owl hooting up on the cliff, and the warriors tense, gazes shifting to the night. Owls are considered bad luck among my people. Especially when they are encountered by war parties. This, however, is a peaceful expedition. A fact signified by the White Arrow that Strong Mussel carries before him.

White is the color of peace and tranquility, of wisdom and restraint and harmony. None of which exists within my storming souls. I am red inside, the color of chaos, blood, conflict, and creation.

I am here because I fell in love with Straight Corn. They knew, of course. There were never any secrets in the high minko’s palace. But they thought it a child’s infatuation, as though I was enamored of a kind of sophisticated pet. The sort of girlish intrigue that would wane when I became a woman.

I’d passed my fifteenth summer when the cramps and bleeding started. Dutifully, they locked me away in the Women’s House for the obligatory lectures on how to behave like a proper woman. I was told in detail how a woman’s monthly discharge had to be restricted to the Women’s House. That it would pollute a man’s Power, sicken his souls, and contaminate his possessions. A boring and endless repetition of the things I’d grown up hearing. As if I hadn’t had it pounded into me since I was a baby.

Then they’d given me my first woman’s skirt with its carefully tied virgin’s knot, fixed my hair, and paraded me out into public for my woman’s feast. For two days my womanhood was celebrated: They dangled me before every high-ranking male in the territory as a potential wife. I was given the most lavish of gifts.

And then, the final night, as guests were leaving, and Uncle and Mother where slapping themselves on the back in celebration over the triumph, I sneaked out into the darkness, took Straight Corn by the hand, and we ran away together to start our new lives.

As I sit here by the river—surrounded by guards—and nurse the rage in my heart, I wonder where he is. Is he staring up at the same night sky? Is he, too, hearing a distant owl? Is he longing for me as much as I long for him?

I know they didn’t catch him. I saw Fox Willow slip away before she was spotted. She would have warned the others, given them ample opportunity to ghost away into the forest before Uncle’s warriors could be sent to comb the area.

Knowing how important Straight Corn is to the Albaamaha resistance, they’d do everything in their ability to keep him free. For that, at least, I can be thankful.

I may be promised in marriage to the Morning Star, but I am far from consigned to my fate. While I was in the forest, living with the Albaamaha and sharing Straight Corn’s bed, I learned the ancient ways. Became an initiate into the ancient secrets of darkness and the dangerous arts.

For now I must bide my time. Strong Mussel understands intuitively. He knows I’m far from being defeated. Somewhere, some way, I will see my chance to get away. Can he and his warriors maintain their vigilance forever?

But eventually I will no longer be his concern. Once I become the Morning Star’s wife, everything is going to change. The rage is going to burn free, and I will find my way back to Straight Corn. Assuming I can be clever enough and use the ancient arts to their fullest effect.

This one thing I swear on the blood of my ancestors: Straight Corn, I will find my way back to you no matter what the cost! And no one will stand in my way.

Willing the Power to rise within me, I close my eyes, find that place of strength deep in my core. I extend my arms to either side, stretching, feeling the slight breeze on my skin.

As I touch the Power, I send my call into the night. I feel them stirring, the strengthening of wings. Around me, the night stirs.

Yes, come to me! Bring the ancient Power.

I feel the first of them as they alight on my hands, forearms, and shoulders. Their wings caress my cheeks.

Why haven’t I done this before?

A scream jerks me back to the now, and my eyes blink open.

More screams.

At first I can’t make sense of the sight. The warriors are on their feet, arms flailing at a swarm of humming moths.

Is this my chance?

I get to my feet, take a step. Only to feel the leash pull tight.

Batting at the swarm of moths around us, Cloud Tassel—eyes wide with panic—nevertheless keeps hold of my tether.

The moths vanish into the night. But I smile. It will only be a matter of time.

 

Copyright © 2017 Kathleen O’Neal and W. Michael Gear

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