Judith Post's Blog, page 59

Does Your Preferred Genre Affect How You Read?

I’ve been thinking about reviews lately.  I’ve been lucky to have had some that lifted my spirits and encouraged me to write more.  And it’s interesting what some readers look for while others notice different things.  I have to admit, I noticed this more when I chose a few books by OTHER writers I admired and read THEIR reviews.  I could be more objective:)  And the things that hooked me in a book didn’t always matter to other readers.  They focused on something else.  So it made me wonder.  If you prefer a certain genre, does it affect what you look for when you read?

I’m at heart a mystery fan.  I want clues that add up to something that’s coming.  When I read a romance, I look for subtle signs of how the relationship is changing and what’s going to get it in trouble.  I know it’s going to end in HEA, but what hurdles does it have to overcome?  Same goes for fantasy.  Urban fantasy and paranormal anything would be a close second on my list of favorites, but I still want to see cause and effects that add up to the big showdown near the end of the book.  Characters hook me and keep me reading, but I still want a solid plot with inner motivations that lead to actions.

That made me consider what readers of other genres might look for.  I’m guessing romance readers take relationships seriously.  And they probably hope for a HEA.  In the last book I finished, I was hoping for one, too, but it didn’t happen.  The ending was pretty darn realistic.  In the book before that in the series, the relationship went bust at the end of the book, too.  Would that bother a romance reader, or would she take that in her stride and look forward to the next book?

Do fantasy/sci-fi readers focus more on world building than I do?  Probably.  I read C.S. Boyack’s GRINDERS, and a lot of readers commented on his vision of a future San Francisco.  And he did a great job on that, but what I focused on was the two cops trying to find the grinder who was experimenting on and using rats to find a cure for his wife.  That plot hung me up more than the cops themselves, who were also well done.

And what about horror fans?  What do they focus on?  I really doubt they’d ever read a cozy.  I’m thinking they want a story with emotional impact and lots of tension.  Tone and mood play a big part in setting things up.  And then I’d guess they need that adrenaline rush when a good guy is about to meet his end.

Thriller fans?  They need a lot of tension, too.  Good guy versus bad guy often leads to a ticking clock.  Will the protagonist save the (whatever) in time?  A few dead bodies usually pave the way to the end.  But let’s face it, in lots of mystery fiction…and sometimes a few other stories…there’s nothing like a dead body to pick up the pace of the story.

What do you think?  Do you have a favorite genre?  Are there things that make you like one book more than another?  Great characters can hook all of us, but what else keeps you turning pages?

 

 

 

Mystery Musings

I just finished reading PAINT IT BLACK by PJ Parrish.  I’ve just started the series, so as usual, I’m behind everyone else.  This is the second full book, and I really liked the first one, but I loved this one.  I loved it so much, I decided to do more than a review and to write about it here.

It’s gritty, but for me, it never went too far.  It’s violent, but we hear the violent acts but don’t have to watch them.  I can only take so much these days.  When I was young, bring on the horror and gory!  Show me a new serial killer.  But those days are behind me.  Which is odd.  Because I can write about them with more ease than I can read them.  Maybe because I put myself in the killer’s mind and what he’s doing feels like what he would really do?  Not sure.  But hinting at things off screen works better for me these days.

The Louis Kincaid stories are thrillers, and this one revolves around a serial killer.  His psychology fascinated me.  And the farther I read, the more I knew that eventually, Louis Kincaid would be high on his list of victims.  That made for great tension.  To the point, (and, sorry, because this might be a spoiler that ruins some of the tension when it happens). that he kidnaps one person but doesn’t kill her because she doesn’t fit his profile.  It’s such an insight into the killer’s motives, I thought it was brilliant.

Besides the mystery and motives, I enjoyed how the characters in this book were fleshed out.  And it was all done in such an understated way with so few words and deep conversations, I was impressed.  Each character is mindful and respectful of each other’s space.  They all have past histories, and some of those histories are painful, so they tiptoe around them, never prying, never pushing too hard.  That made it so that when I learned a little about them, a peek into what happened that they avoid, it made it all the more meaningful.

The end was a fight to the finish.  Well done.  The protagonist didn’t just walk into an obvious trap, even though I do think he could have figured out who the last victim was sooner.  But that aside, the end delivered a strong, emotional impact.  It worked.  And the wrap-up wasn’t exactly what I expected but realistic, so actually better in its way.

This book had complex, private characters; a great villain; strong teamwork between the good guys; and plenty of tension for a thriller.  It’s going high on my list of favorite reads.

Ugh!

This year, Easter was a bust.  I baked a batch of sugar cookies and shortbread cookies and made a frosting glaze.  I gave half of each to our neighbors next door because they have little girls who had fun helping me make cookies once when I babysat them.  We bought a spiral ham and ate it ourselves.  No kids came.  No grandkids.  Just HH and me.  It felt weird.  Ugh.

We’ve watched more TV than usual, and finding a mystery series that both HH and I love, with all the stations we have, hasn’t been easy.  We both love Longmire, Poirot, and Agatha Raisin.  We watch each of those once a week.  We tried Murdoch, and it was okay.  We tried Father Brown, and I liked it, HH didn’t.  We tried Bosch (all of my friends like it).  We didn’t.  I liked a few others.  HH complained.  So we ended up watching Doc Martin.  We both like it.

I’m telling you, nothing has hooked HH more than The Great British Baking Show.  But we’ve been trying to bake together, and it’s been. . .  interesting.  Somehow, I always end up wearing more flour than I’ve ever worn before, and the results are questionable.  At best.  The last time, I said, “Three cups of flour,” but he only put in two, and the cookies were so soft, we had to add as we went and who knows how much sugar he put in, because they didn’t taste right.  We compensated with frosting.  But I taught the kids to cook and bake, and doggone it, I’m going to teach him too.  Because he wants to do it so much.  Sigh.  He’s a great cook, but he’s sort of slap/dash.  That doesn’t work so well with baking.

He used to read a lot–mostly nonfiction.  But now, if a book doesn’t grab him in the first few pages, he flips over to watching boats go through the Great Lakes on his tablet or watching slot machines in gambling casinos.  When I tell him that a book’s starting slow for me, but I think I’m going to really like it,  he says, “Forget it.  Try something else.”

Have we reached that point?  Where everything has to grab you and hold you by the throat?  Even recipes?  I sure hope not.  I know I don’t feel that way.  I’m willing to invest time in a book that has a slow build because I’m pretty sure it will deliver.  Come to think of it, so do my kids.  So there’s hope.  I’m a slow person, in general.  A slow writer.  A slow reader.  So if a book is slow, I’m okay with it.

Anyway, I hope all of you have had more success than I have lately–with Easter, with TV and reading.  I’m finding happy solutions here and there.  Hope you are, too.  In the meantime, stay safe and stay healthy.  And happy writing.

 

Snippet

This snippet comes from my last Muddy River mystery, TATTOOS AND PORTENTS.  I hope you enjoy it:

I studied the dark ink, a Celt symbol. “May I touch your tattoo?” I asked Festus.

He rolled up his sleeve again, and I placed my hand on it. “I feel both Fae and witch magic.” Keeping my hand on the tattoo, I cast a spell, and suddenly, an image appeared in the air before us, a scene that played out as a movie.

We were seeing the images through someone else’s eyes. Whose, I couldn’t tell. But we were walking along a river bank, picking leaves and roots to brew for potions. We felt the sun on our backs, but the air was cool. Leaves were changing colors, and some had already fallen to the ground. Autumn. Late October maybe?

We could feel the seer’s thoughts and emotions. Whoever it was, was new to the area, surprised by how many varieties of plants grew there. She almost had her basket full when the sound of movements made her glance up. A swirl of spirits raced toward her and whirled around her like a gray tornado of dead souls. Wisps of faces flashed past her. I’d seen spirits like these before at the voodoo village across the river. I knew the spirits could do no harm, but this girl was frightened. She screamed, dropped her basket, and threw up her hands to defend herself. Then, she heard more movement behind her, but before she could turn, pain exploded in the back of her head and oblivion overtook her.

The scene ended for a moment of blank air, and then we felt her consciousness stir. The next images were fuzzy until her eyes focused better. A horrible headache made me press my hand to the back of my head. She teetered, unsteady, as she rose to look at her surroundings. Bars surrounded her. She was in a cage in what might be a basement. Gray, cement walls and a cement floor were lit by a lightbulb dangling in the center of the room.

She spoke a spell to unlock the cage door, but nothing happened. We felt her surprise and fear. She went to the door and shook it, chanting more spells. None of them worked. Trapped, terror raced through her. Then we heard footsteps coming down wooden stairs. Panic paralyzed her. She stared, holding her breath.

A tall, gaunt man shambled forward. He never blinked, his eyes glazed with no emotion behind them. His movements were jerky. He opened a small slot at the bottom of her door and slid a tray of food to her. Her stomach growled, and she realized she was starving. How long had she been unconscious?

She grabbed the bars with both hands and pleaded, “Please help me. Let me out of here.”

Unhearing, the man stood, turned, and walked back up the stairs.

The image dissolved, and Festus blinked, stirred, and gripped my hand. “That’s the dream. Every night. What does it mean?”

 

WHY?

You know, when our kids were growing up, each of them went through a phase when they kept asking, “Why?”  And you’d give them one answer, then another, then another, and then you never wanted to hear that word ever again, because an answer just led to another question.  I sometimes feel that way when I try to seriously think about books I’ve read.

When I finish a book, HH always asks, “How did you like it?  Was it good?”  And then we have a great discussion about books and writing.  But every once in a while, I frustrate him, and I really frustrate me, because I say, “Everything in the book was great, but I just couldn’t get into it for some reason.”  And, in all honesty, that drives me a little crazy.  Because then, the next logical question is “Why?”, and I don’t always have an answer.

When I finish reading a book, I want to know what in it worked for me and what didn’t.  I learn a lot from that.  So when I say, “It had a great plot, great characters, lots of twists and turns, and a solid mystery,” and then I add, “but it didn’t hold my interest.”  I mean, I have to ask myself, What else is there?  What was missing?  Why did I like the last book in the series but had to work to finish this one?  And I’ve had that happen to me a few times lately.  And it’s annoying.  Mostly, because I’ve picked up a few books that were only written sort of haphazardly–not the best word choices or character arcs or spelling–and they kept me entertained from start to finish.  So what’s the deal?

I finally figured it out this morning.  I can forgive the occasional sag in a plot, the occasional lackluster description.  But when the protagonist is as clueless about where the plot’s going as I feel, and I can’t see where the clues or events are headed, I know I’m in trouble.  Now, some authors I trust enough that I know eventually they’ll find their way.  But my reading enthusiasm gets mired in the meantime.

This inspiration was good for me, because I’ve always wondered why I’m not a fan of P.I. fiction.  So many of my friends go on and on about how wonderful a certain P.I. is, and I read the same novel and make myself turn the pages until the end.  Because it’s just not my thing.  When I read a P.I., I feel like I’m just following a person around until he irritates enough people that he’ll get beat up, and once he’s licking his wounds, he might find the one right person who can give him the answer he needs.  He solves the case mostly because he’s so stubborn and through dumb luck and elimination of other possible suspects.  Okay, I’m not going to win over any P.I. fans with that description, but a gumshoe doesn’t feel like he has the same finesse as a Hercule Poirot who relies on his little grey cells.

I feel the same way about a protagonist in a series I like when she comes up against a case where she doesn’t seem to know which end’s up.  She feels lost, trying to solve the case, and so do I.  And I don’t like it.  I much prefer when the clues just stack up, one on top of the other, and they feel like they’re moving in the right direction.  I might not be able to point to the criminal and say, “Aha!”, but I feel like I’m getting closer.  Knowing that, I understand why the two books I struggled with bothered me so much.  The heroines couldn’t make sense of any of the clues.  When they added them up, they didn’t mean anything.  And I was frustrated.

Of course, the fine balance in a mystery is to give enough clues to keep the reader involved, but not so many clues that he solves the case too early.  That being said, though, I often know who committed the crime and I still enjoy the story.  I want to see how the protagonist catches the villain.  That, in itself, is satisfying to me.

What about you?  What slows you down when you read an author you like, but the book falls short?  Do you have any pet peeves?  Happy reading…and writing!

 

 

Mystery Musings

Thought I’d write a little short-short story for you:

Seth pulled on his line, but it was stuck on something.  He scanned the water near the shore.  No fallen log that he could see.  Maybe it was submerged.  He pulled harder and whatever he’d snagged started to move.  He reeled in his line and noticed a red sweatshirt rise within sight.  A body soon became visible, floating face down.  Whoever it was, he was so bloated, Seth didn’t recognize him until he reeled him into the shallow water.  Even then, he might not have known who it was except for the flame tattoos reaching up his neck to his hair line.

Billy Sanderson.  The meanest know-it-all in Dillard County.  Seth walked closer to get a better look at him.  The back of his skull was cracked open–a long, narrow gape like maybe he’d been hit from behind with a crowbar.  Seth was no expert, but it looked as if he’d been in the water a while.  He thought back to remember when Billy had gone missing.  Two months ago?  In early spring?

There’d been a ruckus for a while, and the sheriff had questioned Billy’s wife, Lizbeth.  Her black eye and bruises attested to Billy’s handiwork.  He’d asked her when she’d last seen her husband.

“Two days after he beat me.  He said he got a job out of town, and he wanted me to move with him.”  She shook her head.  “If I left Dillard, and he didn’t have to answer to my brothers, he’d beat me every time he felt like it.  When I told him that, he said he was gonna give me a better whopping than usual so I’d remember him and mind my manners till he came home.”

The foreman at the quarry where Billy worked, and where Seth was fishing, told the sheriff that Billy had strutted into his office the day he went missing and quit.  “Told me he had a better job with more money, and he didn’t need to put up with me anymore.”

He’d told Carrie Mae the same thing when he stopped in the diner for lunch that day.  No one saw him after that.  The sheriff asked Lizbeth’s brothers about Billy, but they swore he stayed clear of them, because he knew what was coming if they saw him.  Lizbeth’s brothers were built like grizzlies.  Why a  man would risk their tempers, Seth didn’t know.

Seth glanced at Billy’s body again, then rubbed his chin, thinking.  He started to reach for his cellphone but stopped.  He liked Lizbeth’s brothers.  The foreman here, too.  And he’d always felt sorry for Lizbeth.  He didn’t particularly like Billy’s parents or family, and they didn’t seem to miss Billy all that much.  If he called this in, someone would probably be punished for bashing in Billy’s head and dumping him in the quarry, but Seth was pretty sure Billy had probably deserved what happened to him.

A rowboat was tied to the pier a little ways away.  Employees took it out to fish once in a while.  No one was here so early on a Sunday morning, so Seth walked down, got in the boat, and rowed it to where Billy floated.  He pulled in close to shore, got his pole, and started rowing out to the deepest part of the quarry, dragging Billy’s body behind him.  A little island jutted from the water, and he pulled the boat to land there.  Rocks littered the ground, and he stuffed as many of them as he could under Billy’s sweatshirt, even pushed them under his jeans.  Then he got back in the boat, rowed the short distance to the deep water.  That took some effort, since the body wanted to sink, but his fishing line held, and he didn’t cut it until he’d reached the spot he was looking for.

He watched Billy sink out of sight.  Hopefully the fabric of his clothes would pin him to the bottom until enough flesh had rotted from his bones that he wouldn’t float again.  That done, Seth rowed back to the pier and tied the boat in place.  He got his fishing pole and tackle box and decided to call it a day.  As he loaded his pickup and drove back to town, he heard the church bells ringing at the end of Sunday service.  Lizbeth and her brothers never missed a week.  Neither did the quarry’s foreman.  But Seth didn’t feel one twinge of guilt for playing hooky this time.  Instead of worshipping, he’d performed a good deed.  And hopefully, on the Lord’s day, good deeds did go unpunished.

 

 

Snippet

This comes from my Muddy River short read, UNDER SIEGE.  Once you read it, you might understand why I chose the cover I did for it.  It’s only 99 cents now.

I sent birds ahead of us to search for the hospital van. An hour later, a flock returned to us on the country road Strike knew they’d taken. Swooping and cawing, they led us to the vehicle. Both the driver’s and passenger’s doors were open. Deep grooves lined the soft dirt at the side of the road. It looked as though Tianne and Hans had been dragged into the tall grasses. We followed the trail and stopped short when we saw their bodies.

Tianne’s eyes and mouth gaped wide in horror. Flies walked across her eyeballs, flew in and out of her open lips. I couldn’t stand it. I sent a stiff breeze to blow them away. Her abdomen was ripped open, an empty cavity, the flesh torn off her limbs. Blood pooled on the grass and weeds beneath her. I pressed a hand to my stomach. I refused to retch. I didn’t want to sniff for magic, but there were no other marks on her that I could see, so I made myself. Disgusting. But I only smelled fear and blood. I had just as much trouble looking at Hans. His head had rolled a little away from his torso, leaving only a bloody stump for a neck. He’d been chewed on, but nothing like Tianne.

Strike’s face drained of all color, and he turned away. I couldn’t imagine what he must be feeling. It’s bad enough losing a sister, but to see her like this? I shivered and rubbed my arms. He could never UN-see it. It would stick in his memory forever. Amaris laid a hand on his arm, trying to soothe him. Brown and Raven’s hands were curled into fists. Meda had turned her face away.

Finally, Raven rasped, “Let’s spread out to look for evidence of who or what killed them. Maybe we can find out what we’re up against.”

Gratefully, we turned away from the remains and started our search. Claws stayed close to my side. If something or someone had surprised the other victims, they wouldn’t catch my ocelot off guard. He’d smell them before they were close. I passed a few scrub bushes and frowned at faint marks in the soft dirt. Stooping, I studied the ground more closely, then called, “I found paw prints.”

The others came to see.

“Not big enough for any Were I know,” Brown said. “I’ve never seen any shifter this small.”

“A coyote?” Meda asked.

“Maybe, but if it was this size, it couldn’t kill someone with any kind of magic. Was your sister powerful at all?” Brown asked Strike.

His voice unsteady, Strike said, “Powerful enough. She was half vampire.”

Claws bent his head to sniff the ground and started following the scent. We trailed behind him. I took the front so that if we came on something, I could throw up a fast, protective shield while the others got ready to fight.

Raven pointed to the trampled grass and weeds. “We’re dealing with a good-sized group. I’ve seen a few footprints. Someone’s traveling with whatever animals there are.”

Strike’s fangs had slipped past his lips, and his nails had grown and curved into vicious claws. He was too upset to control them. If we met his sister’s killers, he’d bulk up even more. It would be a blood bath.

I tugged the zipper on my heavy coat higher. The area was so open, the wind hit us full blast. I pulled my knit cap out of my pocket and yanked it over my ears. I wished I’d brought my gloves. Then Raven touched me and sent heat through my fingers and palms. My fingers could move again, less stiff. There were advantages to living with a fire demon.

We tramped up a small hill and then down it into a ravine. We followed that for a long time. Raven asked Strike, “Does someone have a vendetta against your family or the settlement you left?”

“Not that I know of. We lived in peace with the mortals we knew. I never expected the predator to follow us. I thought it was picking us off because we were convenient prey.” His gaze scanned the area, his muscles bunched, ready to spring into action.

Raven turned to me next. “If this was a monster, you’d smell some kind of magic, wouldn’t you?”

My nose started to drip, and I had to press a Kleenex to it. “I haven’t gotten one whiff of magic of any kind.”

We kept walking and finally came into a clearing. A fire pit surrounded by stones sat in its center. A large rectangle of grass and weeds was matted down.

“The size of a tent.” I sniffed again. This time because of the cold, but also to look for a scent. “No magic. I think we’re dealing with humans.”

 

The End

I just finished the first draft of my 6th Jazzi Zanders mystery.  I pushed pretty hard to give myself plenty of time to send it to my critique partners so I can work on their feedback before my May 4 deadline.  I’m excited about this one.  The fifth book comes out September 22, so this one won’t come out until spring 2021.  That’s close enough to Easter that I’m ending it with Jazzi’s Easter meal for her family at her house.

Writing about an amateur sleuth means that I need to have a good reason for Jazzi to be involved in each murder case.  For this book, I planted a dead body in her sister’s shampoo chair in the salon Olivia and her mom co-own.  Worse yet, the killer used Olivia’s favorite, expensive scissors to stab the new hairdresser she’d hired.  And since the shop hadn’t opened yet, and it was Olivia’s scissors jammed in Misty’s chest, she’s the prime suspect.

My daughter was a hairdresser before she went back to school to become a nurse.  And she swears that being a beautician made her a better RN.  She learned to handle any kind of client that sat in her salon chair, just as she now needs to handle every patient who ends up in one of the beds she has to cover.

For this book, though, besides Jazzi’s sister, I wanted to pull in another character, someone from her past–her ex-fiancée.  Chad has married since they broke up, and he and Ginger have been happy until she tells him that she can’t have kids.  He was honest when they met and told her his big dream was to be a father.  When she confesses that will never happen, he feels tricked, cheated, and he’s not nice about it, but when Ginger disappears, he regrets how he treated her and wants her back.  Unfortunately, after the police start searching for her, they find her body close to the town where she grew up.  And…of course, Chad is the prime suspect because spouses always are.

No one in Jazzi’s family has anything good to say about Chad, and Ansel’s only heard how horrible he treated her.  So when Chad asks for Jazzi’s help, he’s not keen on it.  I liked the interplay between them while Jazzi tries to convince him that Chad needs her.  He’s not jealous of Chad.  He just doesn’t like him, but he finally reluctantly agrees.

And for the first time in the series, I have Gaff and Jazzi respectfully disagree on where the clues lead.  That was interesting to write, too.

There was enough going on in this book, I had to be more careful than usual trying to pull all the threads together before the last chapter.  I’d planted clues, introduced characters, and they all needed to be there for a reason.  My fear was that I might have forgotten one of them.  I don’t think I did, but my critique partners will notice if I messed up.  There were more twists than usual near the end of the book, and I worked harder to make them land at the right places.  All in all, when I wrote the last scene, it felt good that everything added up and came out the way I hoped it would.  At least, it feels like it did.  Like I said, if it didn’t, my CPs will use more red ink than usual:)

Mystery Musings: My Brain’s BioRhythm

I’ve finally made it to my book’s last quarter, and as always, I looked at my plot points, and there weren’t enough to fill enough pages.  That’s a usual.  I think when I’m plotting, my brain can only come up with so many ideas and then it fizzles.  Pfft!  And I always overestimate how many pages I’ll get from each plot point.  WHY can’t descriptions flow for pages for me like some of my friends’ writing can?  Not padding.  All good.  But no, I write tight and can’t seem to expand as much as I’d like to.  So, it’s always back to the drawing board…or my version of an outline.  And I always have to reach the point where I panic before adrenaline makes my TINY gray cells think of a new twist or a little distraction to finish the story.

And just when I’m irritated with my Muse and my brain, it offers me a consolation prize.  Yup, last night, while I was fiddling with a scene, Ta Da!, an idea came for book 7 in my Jazzi series.  Then an idea came for book 8 and another one for book 9.  I scribbled them down and meant to push them away for another day, but book 7 wasn’t finished trying to tempt me.  And bless my subconscious, three different ideas came together in a swoop.  And a new character sprang to life to introduce as a recurring part of Jazzi and Ansel’s lives.

I’m crediting C.S. Boyack for the new character.  He’s been writing a series about the archetypes in stories for Story Empire’s blog, and his last post was about the Trickster.  You can find it here: https://storyempirecom.wordpress.com/2020/03/23/character-archetypes-the-trickster/

Now, forever ago, I wrote urban fantasy as Judith Post, and I wrote a three book series about a fallen angel.  Enoch was sent to Earth to clean up after his friend Caleb, who meant to join Lucifer’s rebellion, but Enoch tackled him and stopped him, thinking he’d save him from being thrown in the pit with the other rebels.  And he did save him from that, but Caleb was punished anyway.  He was thrown to Earth instead, and had a wonderful time spreading trouble and creating a new race of vampires.  The thing is, it’s hard to hate Caleb.  He’s a self-absorbed, careless Trickster, and I had a wonderful time writing him, so when C.S. Boyack did a post on them, I decided I wanted one in my cozy mysteries.  And bless my mysterious brain, it sent me a fun one to add to Jazzi’s stories.  If I can pull it off.  Tricksters aren’t so easy to write.  But I’m willing to give it a try.

I think every writer’s brain works with different chemical or inspirational impulses, but mine seems to work best when I least expect it.  Or when I panic.  Whatever triggers yours, I hope you find ideas and inspiration.  And happy writing!

Snippet

This snippet is from Muddy River Three:  ALL THE MISSING CHILDREN.  Prim Tallow, a Fae who lives in Muddy River, married the town’s bartender, Derek–a vampire.  They’ve been sending money to help a new supernatural community that’s started up on the Mississippi River.  Prim grows worried when she can’t get in touch with anyone there for three days.  She convinces Hester and Raven to drive there to check on them, and she and Derek go with them.  They join a supernatural law enforcer for the area to see what’s happened. 

A half hour later, we set off, Raven driving my SUV west toward the Mississippi. Claws curled on the backseat, and I fell asleep with my head propped on a pillow, pressed to the passenger window. Raven had told me once that he could go days without sleep when he was on a case. Witches might not have to sleep, but I sure enjoyed it. And I was a lot less grumpy when I could get my eight hours.

That wouldn’t happen tonight. Raven didn’t know a speed limit, so we’d cross the Mississippi into Missouri sooner rather than later. My night’s sleep would feel more like a nap. But I’d be with Raven. And that’s what mattered.

Nyte was waiting for us at the ferry crossing. His name fit him. Longish, ebony hair framed a lean face. His eyes were so dark, they looked black. He wasn’t exactly handsome, but compelling. About the same height as Derek, he was still inches shy of Raven’s height.

He strode forward to shake hands with my demon. “Haven’t seen you for a while.”

“Maybe three years? Probably a good thing. We only work the worst cases together.” Raven introduced all of us and when he included Claws, Nyte’s black brows rose in surprise.

“Your group is quite a mix. Did the new settlement have this many different types of supernaturals?”

Prim shook her head. “Most of them were shifters and vampires with only a few witches. The witches were all younger, not very well trained. I was hoping to travel here with Hester someday so that she could teach them more spells and potions.”

I’d wondered why the town wasn’t protected by wards and shields to fend off whatever had attacked them. From what Prim said, maybe they didn’t know how.

We boarded the ferry and rode to the far side of the river, then Nyte drove off, staying in the lead to guide us to the settlement. He drove as fast as Raven, zipping alongside the banks of the Mississippi so fast, I couldn’t make out much of anything. I could smell the river water, though, heated by the early August sun. A combination of fish and murky mud. We only headed north a few minutes before a dozen small houses came into view. Every one of them was built shotgun style, long and narrow with a second story. Only three buildings formed the town center—a market, a gas station, and a school.

As we clamored out of our vehicles, I frowned. “A school? How many young children lived here?”

“Every family had kids,” Prim said.

Nyte turned to stare at her. “I didn’t find any kids’ bodies. I didn’t find any kids period.”

“No kids?” Prim marched toward the too-still town. No voices drifted from the houses. No lawn mowers broke the quiet. No kids on bicycles pedaled on the sidewalks. “That’s not possible,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ve talked to every adult who lived here at one time or another. They all had children.”

“Follow me.” Nyte hurried to catch up with her and led her to the last house on the street. He had the smooth, easy glide of all vampires. Opening the door, he led us inside. Claws padded behind us, then arched his back and hissed. My ocelot wasn’t fond of dead bodies.

Prim glanced at the house number as we entered. “White Tip and her husband lived here, a shifter and a vampire.”

Nyte motioned us up the stairs and led us to the first bedroom on the right. A man lay on the floor in pajama bottoms and a woman lay next to him, dressed in a long nightgown. Nyte bent to turn them over, and we saw the bite marks covering their faces, necks, and shoulders. Claws growled deep in his throat and backed up so that he was half in, half out of the room.

Raven pressed his lips together in a tight line. I waved my hand over the bodies, looking for residual magic. “Serpent bites and venom from some supernatural being. Nothing I can identify.”

Nyte scrubbed a hand through his dark hair. “There are so many bites. I thought it must be a swarm of something that attacked them.”

“Flying serpents?” I asked. “Are there any such things?”

“I’ve never dealt with any.” Raven started to another room. We followed him. Empty. A pink comforter with kittens prancing on it lay rumpled, half on the bed, half on the floor. He went to the last bedroom. It was empty, too. This comforter was blue, covered with toy trains. He looked at Prim.   “How old were their kids?”

She leaned into Derek, and he wrapped her in an embrace. Voice strangled, she said, “Auriel was five. Tad was seven.”

The names made it more personal. The comforters bothered me even more. Every school day, I taught kids aged five to eighteen. I had a thing for them. Loved watching them grow into their potential. Where were these two? What had happened to them?

Raven yanked a piece of folded paper out of his back pocket and a pen. He handed them to Prim. “Let’s start listing names of the dead and the missing.”

We went from house to house, and Prim told us the name of each parent and names of their missing children. True to her word, every house had kids’ beds or cribs. My stomach started feeling queasy. Too many dead bodies. And too many horrible possibilities of what had happened to the kids. I tried to push fears out of my mind, but they crept into all of the unguarded crevices of my psyche. I shut them there. I didn’t want to think about them.