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Genre: Fantasy
About GimmemochaLocation: Virginia Home Region: Age:42 Favorite novels: Dresden Files (all of 'em), Kushiel's Legacy books, Prince Roger series, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever Favorite writers: Jim Butcher, Sharon Shinn, Jacqueline Carey, Tanya Huff Favorite music: Peter Gabriel's "Passion", "Last of the Mohicans" soundtrack, lots of techno (especially Crystal Method) Non-noveling interests: Computer gaming -- Can't wait for Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO!. Also my horses, dogs, and my farm |
Joined: September 16, 2009 This Year: Official Participant NaNoWriMo History: NaNoWriMo posts: 243 NaNoWriMo buddies: 0
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Synopsis: St. Ninian's Blessing
Rachel Marsh runs a junque shop in Savannah that specializes in enchanted items. Everything she sells is vetted as thoroughly as it can be, and people seem willing to pay a little extra for a set of glow-in-the-dark cutlery or an ashtray that never lets cigars go out.
But then she sells a mysterious box to a wealthy woman whose daughter disappears the next day, and what had been a quiescent (if creepy) object becomes the center of a battle between creatures even Rachel though existed only in nightmares. Now an ancient evil is loose in Savannah, and Rachel alone has any hope of caging it again, if she doesn't get killed trying.
Excerpt: St. Ninian's Blessing
The box I’d sold Mrs. Frary had been moved. From the picture, it had been in the middle of the floor, and a dirt stain on the lavender showed where it had fallen. Now, the box was on a corner of the desk, closed, next to a framed photograph I couldn’t see from where I was.
But none of that seemed important to me at the time. What seemed important to me was the tingle and wash of magical energies still present in the room.
I hesitated in the doorway, trying to understand what was pulsing against me. I don’t know how I sense it, I just do. It’s something like standing in front of a fan, that sensation of something pushing against you. It can be cool or warm, it usually tingles. If I concentrate, I can sometimes discern more than that.
This energy was bizarre. It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t hot. It wasn’t anything, and yet it was. It whispered against my senses like a scent you can’t quite pin down. It felt like a threat, or the remnants of one. Like how you can walk into a room where people have been arguing, and even if you don’t hear anything, you can tell. The room has an energy.
This room had an energy, and I didn’t like it.
My stomach sank. Had it been the box after all? Had I sold Cathy Frary something lethal, thinking it was harmless? My hand clenched on the door frame, and I forced myself to step farther into the room, eyes on the box.
I brushed a finger over the heavy textured leather surface and yanked it back. The box buzzed against my fingertip, and I blinked in shock, feeling the blood drain from my face. It had been all but quiescent when I’d had it, but it was definitely awake now. Whatever magic it held had been roused somehow. Now I was certain that the box had something to do with Jilly Frary’s disappearance.
Next to the box was a framed picture of a young girl and an older man. Jilly and her father, I guessed. Jilly was mugging for the camera, mouth wide, eyes big, tongue sticking out to one side while her father clutched her close and laughed. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen in the picture.
Oh my god, what had I done?
