U Got the Look: Sneak Peek at Encounters

Fellow author Justin Bog tagged me earlier today in a writing prompt kind of game. As he describes it:

The Look is a writing prompt, a game, another tagging event. This is how U Got “The Look” works: you take your current manuscript, search for the word “look”, and post the surrounding paragraphs. Lastly, you tag 5 blogging authors who you think will be a good choice for the game.

We’re both in the upcoming anthology from Katarr Kanticles Press, Encounters, and starting to consider what it will take to promote this latest effort. So where he quotes from his story, I’ll quote from mine:

Adam stepped closer to the bed again and pulled back the blanket from her face. The illusion of her death was complete. The gray pallor was not consistent with a living person. He wasn’t sure why it had been necessary to display her naked, like some life-sized trophy, but his concern for her modesty had been overridden in the drive to finally trip up Anson and wrap up his insidious campaign. Thinking of it like that made it sound inappropriately patriotic. There were no redeeming features to this case. The women were all college seniors, nearly finished with science-related degrees at any one of the local colleges offering that education. They were on their way to serious and important work for the betterment of their fellow beings. The profiler they’d brought in after the fourth body speculated the perp had an inferiority complex and was working on a misogynistic plan to eliminate his competition in the fiercely competitive bioscience arena. Which made him well-educated enough to carry out his crimes with cold-blooded efficiency, leaving behind very little in the way of trace evidence.

Even finding out that much had been the work of months. At first, the proximity of the bodies to elements of Adam’s undercover work had led his superiors to believe the perp had had mob ties. The first bodies had been so badly decomposed and dismembered the force hadn’t even known when to peg the beginning of the timeline. As soon as Adam had received word on the similar backgrounds and looks of the victims, he’d reached out to Angelica to warn her. In each succeeding case, the girl had had the same long, brown locks and athletic frame.

Their father may have been a philandering fool who couldn’t keep it in his pants long enough to save himself four bastards and a failed marriage with its own kids as collateral damage, but at least their mothers had banded together in mutual support (probably driven by Angelica’s mother’s New Age inclination toward communal living), so all the kids were well-taken-care-of. And close. Angelica was the one nearest him in age, and even though they were only six months apart, he’d always reveled in taking care of his baby sister. In fact, it’s what had driven him to join the force rather than complete a four-year degree right away—after all, he had two other little sisters to watch out for too.

Angelica had laughed at his concern, but been prudent enough to enroll in a self-defense class. In the end, even that preparation and fore-knowledge hadn’t saved her the indignity first of being stalked, and then of the multiple rapes. Anson had turned out to be more warped than the profiler had anticipated, acting as if he were in a consensual relationship and coming back for more. At least Angelica had brought her brother all the evidence right away, so their files were now bulging with details on what else to look for in the past cases.

This story is way outside my comfort zone, but was inspired by the old news out of Egypt that that country planned to introduce legislation regarding Relations with dead wives… So far the feedback has all been good, so I’m glad for the opportunity to have stretched my writing muscles. Though I’m still writing in the Urban Fantasy genre–which means you get a picture of Kyra, whom too many casual visitors have seen as a WOLF!

😉

As for my taggees… I know of quite a few people who are in the middle of working on their next books/releases. Ladies, here’s your excuse to share some of your words with the people who are holding their breath, waiting for them:

Enjoy their words! 🙂

UPDATE: Angel Mine is now published as a stand-alone short story.