*throws confetti*
To kick off the excitement, Sasha Summers, Anna Hackett and I are over at Ye Olde Inkwell today, talking about how A GALACTIC HOLIDAY was first put together. We're also doing a giveaway with three prizes at the end of the blogfest on December 21st. The more you enter, the better chance you'll win! Good luck!
Also throughout the week I'm going to be posting excerpts from my novella, HOW THE GLITCH SAVED CHRISTMAS. In this scene, Detective Reina Vedette and her rival in the department, Edison Wicke, are at the scene of a crime, but it's unlike any other scene they've come across. Instead of finding chaos, loss and misery, the two discover what could possibly be the beginnings of a Christmas miracle. Enjoy the excerpt!
***
“Wow.
A real tree.” Reina leaned in to sniff appreciatively, and he wanted to run a
finger down that cute little ski-shoot bump she called a nose. “Call me
sentimental, but I love that scent.”
“Sentimental,”
he obliged her, then drank up the pleasant tingle when she slanted those inky
black eyes his way. “Want to hold hands and sing Christmas carols? I know all
the words to ‘Gimme, Santa, Gimme’.”
“I
think ‘O Tannenbaum’ would be
more appropriate.”
“I’m
not singing about shit I don’t even know how to say.” Narrowing his eyes, he
went online and did a quick Christmas carol search. “Okay, now I do. Feel like
singing?”
She
fished a small rectangular item out of a zip pocket and thumbed a button. In an
instant the clear crime-scene investigation visor—the same kind he’d used
before he’d gotten his bod-mods—sprang from its compact state. “Thanks, I’ll
pass.”
“Vedette,
you have no sense of adventure.”
“Hmm.”
Visor in place, her attention veered back to the tree. With an air of
curiosity, she touched the string of popcorn swirled around it. “Real tree,
real popcorn. A red and green paper-chain, paper doily snowflake ornaments and
a star made out of aluminum foil. What does this remind you of?”
“I
told you—‘Gimme, Santa, Gimme.’”
“I
can’t believe I forgot you suffer from an incurable case of smartassery.” She
shook her head as though lamenting this tragic flaw in his personality. “Are
you ever serious, Detective Wicke?”
“Seriousness
is overrated. And we’ve known each other a couple years now, yeah?”
She
pursed her lips. “Let’s see. My first memory of you was when you ate the
pistachios given to me by the family of the last victim of the Lake Shore Drive
Cannibal. This occurred a couple months before that twitchy university
professor wired his campus’s science building to go up in a nuclear flash. As I
recall, you were hyped up about sniping him straight out, while I thought it
might be a great idea to find out why he’d flipped his lid.”
“My
plan had merit.”
“Except
for the fact that the detonation trigger was biomechanically hard-wired to his
body. Your plan would have turned Chicago into a mushroom cloud. Mine uncovered
the fact that the student he’d been obsessing over was going off to spend
Spring Break with her boyfriend. A couple sweet-nothings from her via vid-chat,
and he was as docile as a lamb.” She shot him a frown. “Is there a point to
your question?”
“The
point is, we’ve known each other for a while now. When are you going to start
calling me Edison?”
“Maybe
when you tell me what you and your bionic brain come up with when you look at
this tree.”
There
was a challenge in her tone he couldn’t help but answer. He plugged the
screencap of the tree into a search engine and let it roll. “This is an
Austrian pine tree, standing at a height that would be consistent with a tree
that is approximately three to five years in age and could therefore be
considered a sapling. The needle tips are showing the first signs of Diplodia,
a blight-like disease that hits Austrian pines living primarily in urban areas—”
“God,
I hate all the trivial garbage search engines vomit out.” If he had been plant
life, the look she gave him would have been just as devastating as Diplodia. “Try
to look at this object with human eyes and tell me what you see. That
is, if you can even remember how that’s done.”
With
a curse, he closed the internal search window. “Someone has a really bad sense
of Christmas style?”
“This
is a child’s tree.” Though she still looked as irritated as he felt, her tone
softened as if a part of her was slipping away to another place. She brought a
gloved finger to one of the doily snowflakes as if it were made of the finest
crystal. “I used to make these when I was a kid. Same with the paper chains. Though
I have to admit mine never came out as symmetrically perfect as these little
geometric wonders, no matter how hard I tried.”
“Yeah?”
There was something in her expression, an echo of sadness that didn’t jibe with
the conversation. “I can see you shooting for perfection, even as a rugrat.”
“It’s
not my fault I’m detail-oriented. Did Ms. Seldon notice if any of her household
items were used to make the decorations?”
“She
says no. She didn’t even know what a doily was, and quite frankly neither did
I. Who knew there was such a thing as doily snowflakes?”
“My
parents.” She hunkered down to examine the base of the tree. “This material
wrapped around the tree’s base looks like that sheet hanging up at the window,
complete with a sun-bleaching on one side. Unlike the ornaments and the tree
itself, this tree skirt didn’t come from outside. This was already here.”
“Tree
skirts, doily snowflakes.” He shook his head, watching the intriguing play of
emotion drift across her face. What he wouldn’t give to link with her now. “I
don’t even know the names of these things. You must really go all out for
Christmas, yeah?”
She
shook her head and lifted the sheet to examine what was underneath. “Not since
I was sixteen.”
“What
happened when you were sixteen?”
“How
amazing that a level five detective would have to ask something so obvious. Guess
they don’t make level fives like they used to.”
“You’re
the one who told me to simply ask you about stuff, rather than be invasive,” he
shot back, while his already-iffy mood hit the skids to land him in a place
where putting his fist through a wall seemed like a fine idea. “Don’t get pissy
because I’m a level five now. I earned it, make no mistake.”
She
ducked her head almost to the floor, doing something under the sheet with her
free hand that seemed to have all her attention. “I will admit, you are a
better detective than, say, level three Manu Obie.”
“Damn,
you know how to insult a guy.”
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