Michelle L. Levigne's Blog, page 5

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 

"Justgive the word," Harrison continued. "I'll flip the switch and letyour Romeo know you're there, and send you on over his vital stats. Hey, I'm afirm believer in women having the right to make the first move." Hisgreasy chuckle brought up a handful of college memories I would rather hadstayed lost in forgetfulness.

Tobe fair, Harrison wasn't really a greasy character. He wasn't really thatunethical or manipulative, either. He was just kind of thoughtless, and when hegot his sights focused on a prize, it was hard to stop him from going for it.He tripped over a lot of people and got his toes stomped on. I really had tofeel sorry for the guy, because he meant well. He just couldn't figure outthings like proper procedures and privacy and personal space.

"Pretendyou never got the message," Conrad said, when I reached up to my phone andended the playback.

AfterHarrison gave me his phone and email, and then a condensed version of hisspiel, then the phone and email again. Like I could forget, with shivers ofhorror trickling down my back and ruining the really good lunch I had justeaten?

"What,blame the equipment?" I turned my chair around to face him. Conrad wasslouched into one of the chairs the trio had used on Monday to report onAthena's faked attack.

"It'sconvenient. Which is why I keep saying no to the new owner, who wants toupgrade all our equipment." He shrugged and gave me a  thin sort of smile. "If you call the guyback, even if it's to say no, you will never hear the last of him. He screwedup big-time, using your information, and he's scrambling to keep from gettingin trouble. No," he hurried to say, when I reached for the button to openup the voicemail controls. "You want that message to use against him ifthings get out of hand." 

"Like what?" Ishook my head and waved my hand to stop him when he opened his mouth torespond. "Don't even say it. Saying it aloud makes it possible. I canthink of a dozen awful things that could happen. I'll transfer the message tomy email and send it home, then delete it from here."

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 Istill couldn't remember Harrison or his project.

"Youwere part of my testing group."

Iwas in a lot of testing groups. If we weren't theorizing and setting upexperiments, then we earned our credits by being tested, usually by filling outreams of questionnaires or watching videos with electrodes attached to ourheads.

"Ithink you'll be very interested to know that I parlayed my relationshipanalysis program --"

Oh,dang. Him. Mr. Computers-will-do-all-the-dirty-work-and-let-you-get-to-know-someone-twice-as-quickly-with-half-the-fuss.

"-- into a matchmaking program. I've been in business a couple years now, anddoing very well, if I do say so myself." He gave the name of his company. Eventhough I had heard of it, serving the higher economic bracket of the East Side,I hadn't heard much of anything about the company, good or bad.

"Anyway,"he continued after a short pause. Like maybe he expected me to pick up, allexcited about his programming genius and financial success? Was this guyexpecting me to be all gaga for him? (Maybe gag-gag.) "Just for grins andgiggles --"

Yeah,I remembered him now. What a stupid line!

"--I still had your profile from that class project. Heck, I have everybody'sprofile. I put them all into the program, just to see what or who would popout. Hey, Lanie, I found your perfect match. Now, as a favor to an old collegepal, normally I'd charge two big ones for the basic level service."

Icertainly hoped that when he said "big ones" he meant hundred, andnot thousand. Because if he did, and if he expected to get paid for something Ididn't ask for, I was going to break every vow of ethics controlling thesuperheroes in all those comic books I read growing up. I would sabotage allthose computers he loved so much. And that was just for starters.

"Butfor you, it's free."

"Betterbelieve it's free, considering he put your private information into his systemwithout your permission," Conrad growled, from about five feet behind me. 

Yes, I jumped about fourinches straight up out of my chair. The guy had snuck up on me. Just how oftendid that happen? I usually could tell when someone was watching me, trying toeavesdrop on me, or just plain sneak up on me.

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 

Mypast came back to haunt me, with a vengeance. The voicemail was from aclassmate I barely remembered, from a class I wished I could forget, firstsemester of my senior year of college.

"Hey,Lynny, it's Harrison Kamel from the 'commercial psych practices' class at WBC.Long time no hear, huh?"

Icouldn't remember the name right off, but the class, I did remember. Utter misery.I was glad I hadn't been there to take the call. I wanted to delete the messageright there, but I had been working at the Tattler long enough to have asense for phone messages that I needed to hear through to the end. The endalways contained the dangerous portion. So I kept listening. Hopefully, theworst of the call would be to find out he was on his way in to visit me. Hopefully,I had time to go out another door.

"Commercialpsych practices" was exactly what it sounded like. I took it only tofulfill requirements for my teaching certificate. I got twice the credits forhalf the time spent in the classroom because it was an experimental class.Seriously, I should have taken warning from the "experiment" thosepoor professors had tried to carry off on the entire freshman class, my firstyear of college. Despite that, I took the class to get those credits and havemore time for guardian duties.  And yeah,there was this guy I started dating. That didn't end well, either. The classbasically studied how to use psychology for commercial practices, such asadvertising.

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 Thursdayafter we got Athena safely out of town, I went out at lunchtime. Deliberately.I was in a snarky mood and wanted to be accosted by Freddie Grandstone,who was starting to look a little frantic as he wandered the streets ofNeighborlee, looking for "his" sweet Athena. Seriously? The guyobviously never met Athena Longfellow. Yes, she was always a good girl. Smart.Funny. Loyal. Determined. Sassy. Innocent in many things. "Sweet"?Nope. Not the way Grandstones applied it. For them, sweet equaled stupid,gullible and malleable. Not my Athena!

Mymission was frustrating him. I so much wanted to stare him down and tell him,in complete honesty, that I didn't know where Athena was. Because I didn't. Shewasn't due at Bethany's shooting location for another five or six hours.

NoFreddie appeared. Maybe the dweeb knew I was looking for him? Grandstones hadto have some kind of defensive radar, to have lasted so long, despite all theirfailures. Maybe that showed how desperate the Rivals were that they hadn'twiped out the Grandstone clan as an unreliable weapon. 

However, that was the day Iran into Jane Wilson, finalizing her paperwork to take over the Spindelmutterbuilding and set up her spa, and fulfill the visions I had had long beforeChristmas. After our conversation, I remembered her and made my guess about herbeing the person I saw in my dream/vision, when I watched someone rescueHayward, Steve and Toby.

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 

While we were on thesubject of the Fae, Angela assured me that Bethany had always had a few Fae"observers" since she left Neighborlee to pursue her rising star.They were keeping watch on her. Angela had requested extra vigilance forAthena's sake, since any threat that found Athena would latch onto Bethany.After all, if our enemies figured out enough to identify guardians, past andpresent, they might have the sensitivity to detect her mixed blood heritage.

After things calmeddown more, Angela determined the real draw for bringing Fae into town was Eden.Our community center sat over a huge clump of the collected magic that defendedour town. Like, duh? We all knew that already. We figured that was the reasonBig Ugly or the Oil Slick, if they weren't the same, had manifested at NewYear's, caused time slips, and drained people.

The Fae were in townto conduct scientific studies of the shift in power flow and usage and analyzewhat had gone wrong over the years, to allow the enemy to siphon it away. IfBig Ugly or some other enemy had been able to use the energy for their ownnefarious ends, or if they had been draining it to make sure the guardianscouldn't use it, no one was sure yet. It might take years of study. Then Angelagave me the disquieting news that the Fae experienced time differently thanHumans did. Fae time wasn't along the lines of how God experienced time, whileliving outside of time, being a non-linear person. The Fae could spend yearssequestered in their enclaves, living separated from Earth's time stream, andstep through a portal to Earth and find out that only a few months had passed.Or they could go home for a weekend and return to Earth to find a century hadpassed. Sometimes Fae who had chosen to settle among Humans, or just to"vacation" among us for a few years, would get into serious trouble,send up a metaphorical signal flare for help, and none would come for weeks,months, or years. Then when help showed up, they would discover that the peopleback home had just gotten the SOS and had come as quickly as they could. Therewas that lovely time differential. So when the Fae said it could take years todecipher what had happened, what had gone wrong, how to prevent it happening inthe future, Angela had no idea if it was years in Earth time, years in Faeenclave time, or any reliable translation between the two. 

At least I knew why thosepeople were skulking around town, and I decided to take it as a good sign whentheir numbers decreased to the point I wasn't seeing clouds of attendantwinkies everywhere I turned.

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 Thanks to less powerbeing sucked away and more power building up in Neighborlee for our defensivepurposes, I was getting leg tremors and prickling at the most inconvenienttimes. Winkies swarmed me at the most inconvenient times. It was one thing to bethe only one in the room who could see them. It sometimes got pretty dangdifficult to sit in a meeting at work and not swat at or laugh at the sparklingbits of light creating images in the air around my co-workers' faces.

Along with thewinkies, Fae came to visit. Not Will and Phil, who I had gotten used to duringtheir infrequent visits when I was younger. These were people who sort ofghosted their way through town. Gliding through the crowds of shoppers andpeople taking advantage of unseasonably nice weather to get outside andsocialize or just get their steps in for the day. I recognized them by thetrails of winkies. If that didn't confirm their identity for me, their pointyears did.

Funny thing. Most ofthe Fae, I saw at Miller's Diner. They didn't seem to be making any effort to connectwith Ben Miller. Who, I might add, displayed definite points in his ears. Ihadn't seen those points until our New Year's battle with Big Ugly solved thewhole power-siphon problem. (And created some new ones. The fluctuations as energylevels struggled for a new normal made my legs twitchy. A few times, I neededto get out of my wheelchair and walk, to get rid of the feeling, before Istarted screaming. However, I couldn't really explain to people the whole powerfield problem and how I might finish healing after all these years, now couldI?)

I ate a lot of mealsat Miller's, and encouraged co-workers to have our lunch breaks at the diner,just so I could keep watch on the pointy-eared visitors. It wasn't exactly aStar Trek convention, or LOTR fandom gone amok. Ben Miller didn't seem tonotice anything unusual about his new customers. Maybe the Fae came in andclouded the minds of the wait staff while they helped themselves to food. Icaught a lot of them checking out the rogue's gallery, as Stephanie had calledthe photo display of Miller family history down the back hallway. 

Some of those photos wentmissing after the influx of Fae calmed down. Angela theorized the spell thatmade it possible for descendants of Fae to be seen in public without their earpoints being noticed might have been failing in those photos. She referred toit as the "don't see me" spell, and … honestly, that couldn't beright, could it? I mean, no, I didn't expect fancy foreign words along thelines of Tolkein's Elvin languages, but still, something a little moredignified? We were dealing with magic here, right?

Quiz Time! Earn points toward free books!

 Here's the quiz for this month's featured novel in the Visitors Guide to Neighborlee.

Go to the Ye Olde Dragon's Library storytelling podcast, either in your favorite podcast app, or at YeOldeDragonBooks.com, and listen to Chapter 1 of BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF.

Then answer these questions, send your answers to 2OldeDragons@gmail.com, and earn points toward free Neighborlee books. That easy!

But remember to do it during this month, because there's a new quiz and new featured book next month!

Where did Lanie run into Jane, and what was she doing there?Why was Sheridan Communications having problems due to the Grandstone family?What was the first big clue to fluctuations in Neighborlee's defensive power field?What were the two breeds of "magical critters" who didn't really like each other?What was a result of the fluctuating power field that made Athena angry?Who do they send Athena to visit, to protect both of them?Who was the Grandstone who was semi-invisible because he had stayed out of trouble?Who did he pretend to rescue, to get close to her?What did his minions try to steal?What did Doni want to do to thwart her Halliday relatives' newest attempt to gain custody of her?

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 

Tocap everything off, Hayward gave Athena her very first fake I.D., complete withdogears and fading so her driver's license and credit cards and insurance cardall looked like they had been well used and were ready to be replaced.

Yes,someone could accuse him of trying to make up for all the years he couldn't beactive in his daughter's life. Someone else could ask why he bothered, since hehad only been a sperm donor, and he had nothing to feel guilty about. But thatwas the kind of honorable guy Col. Franklin Hayward was. I think he enjoyedbeing a dad at long last.

Bethany was preparingto help Athena change her look, thanks to her friends in the makeup team forthe movie she was making. Not just hair and eyes, but skin tone and build andthe way she walked and talked. The rest of us would settle back and watch howintensely the Grandstones scrambled to try to track down Athena. Maybe we woulddiscover the strings being pulled, to follow them back to the evil spiderpuppet masters. Hopefully clipping those strings would cripple our enemies evenmore. 

At least, that was theplan. Things got weird and distracted me, so I wasn't really involved in allthe cyber-spy work, which Hayward and his allies and Athena handled quite well.I got to enjoy the slide show later, when Bethany came home for a visit andtreated us to all the pictures and videos of her and Athena's semi-under-cover adventures.

Excerpt: BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee, Ohio, Book 7

 ByWednesday morning, we had Athena's tickets. Multiple trips, leaving the country,heading for Canada and Mexico, and several cruise lines. London sounded thealarm as soon as Athena got onto an airline site to book her plane tickets tofly out to join up with Bethany. Someone was watching for her next move. Whatwas interesting was that they hadn't tracked down her particular presenceonline, but had all sorts of trigger codes downloaded into the airline'swebsite. A quick check by Sherwood revealed that every major airline thatserviced the northern half of Ohio was being watched. Athena couldn't evendrive to Akron-Canton Airport or Toledo to catch her flight and avoid thenotice of the nasties and her erstwhile sweetheart.

PoorFreddie. Every call he tried to place to Athena was cut off before the phonestarted to ring. It didn't matter if it was her dormitory phone, her cellphone, the Longfellow house landline. Gotta love having really alert,wicked-sense-of-humor AI's as allies.

Athena left town by car, withHayward. He drove her to JFK, where she caught the first of an even dozenflights, hopscotching around the country. Meanwhile, London and Sherwood werehaving fun playing with the video cameras and surveillance systems in every hubairport in the country, convincing the watchers that Athena was about to boardairplanes going in contradictory directions. If we had wanted to implement amajor attack on the Rivals, that would have been the day, because they weredistracted, trying to find out which Athena was the real one, so they couldtrack her.

Next book in the VISITORS GUIDE TO NEIGHBORLEE

 

July's featured book in the Visitor's Guide to Neighborlee is BRIDE OF THE LIVING PROOF. Check back here later in the month for the quiz, to earn points toward a free Neighborlee book.

You can listen to the audio of chapter 1 on Ye Olde Dragon's Library storytelling podcast now -- to help you prepare for the quiz!

What's it about?

Engagements have become a contagious disease in Neighborlee!

In between helping friends plan their weddings, Lanie deals with a dog (that is much more than a dog) that has moved in with her.

Then there's an unwanted match from a dating service that might be planted by enemies of the guardians.

While the guardians slowly make contact with possible allies, they sift through warehouses full of information about their enemies, the Rivals, and discover a new problem: Daniel, Lanie's new boss, might be an enemy spy …