The City is a Character

Recognize the image above? You do if you're from my town, or if you're lucky enough to be well-acquainted with the back of the hundred-dollar bill. It's Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the U.S. Constitution was written. In honor of election day, I offer this photo essay from Philadelphia, an historic city on the East Coast of United States, and my home. It's also the setting of The Covalent Series, my urban fantasy. The part that's on Earth, anyway.

Let me tell you about my town. One day not long ago my husband posted a meme on facebook that said:
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People in Philly whisper "What the fuck," to themselves twenty times a day.

​I laughed, because it’s true. I set my books in Philadelphia because I know it so well, but also because it has a rich history and the kind of character that comes with age, diversity, and a powerful (and infamous) ornery streak. Plus, its people have a truly world-class sense of humor.
 
A scene in The Passion Season: Book I of the Covalent Series features a dinner date between Zan O’Gara, a beautiful badass FBI agent, and Rainer Barakiel, a superhuman warrior from another dimension who is masquerading as German businessman. Zan asks Barakiel why he chose to live in Philadelphia.
 
“I like it,” he says. “For an American city it is old, tarnished. You can feel the history. And it has a healthy streak of the bizarre.”
 
Barakiel speaks the truth. Philadelphia is a city of startling contrasts. Old money and high culture crammed up against horrible poverty. Crime, drugs and hostility relieved by an easy camaraderie, a resigned smile that says, “We’re all in this absurd mess together.”
 
In so far as it is possible, my scenes take place in or near real places. For your enjoyment, here are some of them.
 
​Zan meets Barakiel meet when he offers to help the FBI solve a gruesome crime. Someone found a human spleen in the bushes inside Independence National Historical Park. Specifically, it was found next to the Second United States Bank, pictured below.  By the way, unless otherwise noted, I took all these photographs. Later in The Passion Season, Barakiel battles the deadly alien warriors his father, Lucifer, sends to the Earthly Realm to kill him. The fight takes place at the post-apocalyptic FDR Skatepark in South Philadelphia. I've wanted to set a fight scene at this place ever since I laid eyes on it. The Pain Season: Book II of the Covalent Series, opens with another battle. Barakiel confronts a gang of demons behind 30th Street Station, the city’s main train station. The building is gorgeous, neoclassical architecture with an art deco interior. I took this shot last month. The statute is the Angel of the Resurrection. Michael the Archangel is lifting a dead soldier out of the “flames of war.” It memorializes the 1,300 employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad who died in WWII. Later in the book, Zan and Barakiel play out an emotionally and sexually charged scene at Milkboy, a small music venue in Center City Philadelphia, pictured below. Zan plays guitar in a band. They have a gig at the club, where Barakiel shows up unexpectedly. Emotionally and sexually charged pretty much describes the entirety of The Pain Season. To continue the music theme, Barakiel isn't the only one who can show up unexpectedly. Zan appears at a fundraiser for the Philadelphia Orchestra to which Barakiel had invited her. He didn't think she would come. The two sneak into the empty Verizon Hall -- the concert venue -- while the party goes on just outside. I'll leave it to your imagination what they do in there.  This is not my photograph. The orchestra offers plenty of images of Verizon Hall. Finally, the climatic events of The Pain Season take place in the gorgeously spooky Laurel Hill Cemetery, pictured below in this fine photograph by Sarah Ricks. Founded in 1836, the 81-acre cemetery sits on a bluff overlooking the Schuylkill, one of Philadelphia's two rivers. I don't want to reveal too much about the scene I've set there. Suffice it to say, it's told from three different points of view, involves demons, automatic weapons, a sword, double-sided axes, energy barriers, and two powerful beings who can manipulate the properties of matter and energy battling it out on the quantum level. Sounds fun, doesn't it?  I hope you've enjoyed my visual feast and you're inspired to read my books. The Covalent Series. Pulp fiction for the intelligentsia!