To this day I still read a lot. It is my way of disengaging my mind and traveling through someone else’s exciting adventures.
My writing is more escapist. I love a good action story, but more than that I want to engage with the characters. I want to feel what they’re going through, if possible. I want situations that make me excited, worried, where I laugh and say ‘take that, sucka!’ out loud.
The challenges faced by the protagonists don’t have to be life threatening, it could be a challenge to ask that special someone out for a date that keeps the story flowing. I’m not really into books that keep you constantly afraid for the characters. If I care about a character, I’ll turn the page, and buy the next book, just to see them reach a personal milestone that is challenging to that character. However, having said all of that, action is what drives the story forward!
For the last couple of years, I’ve been bouncing back and forth between Urban Fantasy and Military Science Fiction with my personal reading. I decided, for my series, I wanted to merge both genres. However, how to accomplish this? I decided I would write a story arc that would take us from a pivotal point here on Earth and then take the characters through the effort to reach for the stars and beyond.
There are presently thirteen titles* sketched out. Death Becomes Her (originally titled “Death Comes”) is the first in the series and the next has the working title “Queen Bitch”.
My thought behind Bethany Anne’s character was ‘what happens when you take a person overly sensitive to injustice and give her the ability to kick ass and ignore the names? I’m sure she could effect change, but it doesn’t automatically follow that it will be good change. The fight she has might not be with a ‘boss’ at the end of each book, but rather with herself. Will she become that which she loathes? Will she be able to recognize humanity in enemies or will she become desensitized like Michael? How will her friends react if that occurs?
Bethany Anne has a lot on her plate. Where is Michael? Is he alive, is Carl alive? If she changes the strictures which everyone follows that Michael laid down, what happens? How does she go about dealing with the challenge to Michael with the vampire serum? Without Michael, there’s a vacuum at the top of the UnknownWorld and Bethany Anne is smart enough to know she cannot allow a leadership vacuum to occur. She’s going to need to step in and ‘put her size seven Christian Louboutin’s* up their asses if they don’t get in line.
Well, let’s be real. She’ll change her shoes then implement the attitude adjustments.
That’s what she’s up against, so what does she have? Well, wonderful new skills. The ability to bitch slap with the best of them. Nathan is a solid computer security wizard and she has TOM, and the organic computer in her mind (I hope that ends up well for her).
Michael has provided some funds that she needs to access. I’m unsure what she will do for a home. Can she utilize Michael’s home in New York? If she can’t, where will she make her base of operations? Will Bethany Anne ever have a romantic interest? I’m not sure.
What I have learned writing this book (other than that Scrivener is the best software for an author like me to get a book completed) is that as I write, the characters write their own stories. An example is that I never had Ecaterina in my story, she just tagged along. I tried to outline this story a long time ago. I failed miserably. What worked was sitting down and writing. Hopefully, it was a fun story!
Please, if you enjoyed this book give it a rating on Amazon. Your kind words and encouragement help any author. I will continue to the next story whether you provide an OUTSTANDING review or not. However, it might get done a wee bit faster with the encouragement (smile).
Want to comment on the best scene, comment, event, shoes or gun for Bethany Anne, weapon Nathan would prefer…you name it?
Thank you.
Michael Anderle, November 2015
* Now a total of 21 books for The Kurtherian Gambit & 4 Additional in “The Second Dark Ages”… More later ;-)
*All credit for me having ANY shoe knowledge goes to my wife, who still works to provide me with even a finger’s amount of fashion sense. Why she asks me to comment on her outfits in the morning still confuses me to this day.
Queen Bitch
The Kurtherian Gambit Book 2
1
Brasov, Romania
Bethany Anne was waiting for Ecaterina and Nathan to give her the most important information she needed to focus on for the next day.
Where could she go shopping?
In the last eight months, she had expected to die, been introduced to a vampire, been subjected to genetic changes to her body and had to eat people.
Granted, most of that time she was asleep. While she was asleep her alien symbiont was making changes to her body. But one had to admit that the rest of it was pretty damn disturbing and she was seriously in the need of some shopping therapy. Especially a good pair of shoes. Well maybe not. Since the changes to her body included making her legs six inches longer, maybe she didn’t need the stiletto heels short girl workaround anymore.
She could hear Ecaterina, with her exotic and sexy Romanian accent, and Nathan talking. His good looks would officially be off the market if Ecaterina didn’t screw up. He was drawn to her like a moth to flame. She was just as interested in him but her normal self-assurance had apparently been left behind. She was constantly doubting herself and worrying whether Nathan had any interest in her. Her self-doubt was hiding the obvious.
Not Bethany Anne’s problem right now. She had a need to be dressed in anything but the ill-fitting rags she was presently wearing.
If you had asked most any man in Brasov, or the world for that matter, Bethany Anne was a knockout. Black hair and a stellar, lithe body would have most guys working hard to not look at her. They would feel their wife’s or girlfriend’s eyes watching them like a hawk.
Both of the guys in the room with her right now had seen her when she wasn’t at her best. Mind you, this wasn’t a ‘bad hair day’ kind of not her best. But rather a red eyes, fangs in her mouth, blood all over her face and hands as she killed supernatural wolves and drank their blood kind of not her best. It was a cock-blocker for both Alexi and Nathan. As well it should be for any non-sociopathic male.
She had been helping both Alexi and Nathan overcome a serious difference of opinion with a local werewolf pack under the command of the late and certainly unlamented Algerian. Algerian had received his marching orders from the vampire Petre. Petre made the mistake when trying to escape of paying attention to Ecaterina’s spectacular cleavage instead of the bear trap that crushed his leg.
Hearing the screaming and a sudden thud, Bethany Anne was worried about the spunky woman when she erupted out of the tunnel only to find Petre laid out on the ground, foot in the trap and Ecaterina buttoning up her shirt. That had made Bethany Anne’s day.
Ecaterina, in her present state of self-doubt, was worried that Nathan (who was the most cautious Were in the world when it came to being careful around vampires) would succumb to Bethany Anne.
Ecaterina shouldn’t have been worried. A boyfriend was the last thing on Bethany Anne’s mind at the moment. She didn’t have time for a boyfriend or even a friendly boy for that matter.
What Bethany Anne wanted was a solid pair of Christian Louboutins in the worst way. She needed to feel like a woman for a while. Her abilities notwithstanding, she was more accustomed to projecting confidence behind the armor of a Coach purse, a pair of Christian Louboutins and a tailored suit. None of which should have bloodstains on them. Something she couldn’t say about most of the clothes she had been wearing for the past few days.
If they didn’t hurry up and let her know what they were finding, she was going to start walking towards the center of town, and pity the person who interrupted her therapy efforts. It didn’t help that she couldn’t understand or read Romanian and Nathan had decided he needed to ‘brush up on his Romanian’ around Ecaterina.
Kiss-ass, she thought.
> Switching to English, Nathan got her attention and closed the laptop they had been using. “OK, we think you should start at the Coresi Shopping Mall on the northeast side of town and you can get yourself kitted out at the higher-end stores. From there, you will present a, uhh…” At this point, Nathan got the look on his face that suggested his sense of self-preservation had just kicked in. He ate whatever his next comment might have been and looked up at Ecaterina who had been standing behind him as he sat at the table.
Bethany Anne thought it was hilarious. According to Nathan, all of the other vampires in the world were hardasses about comments that could be taken the wrong way. She didn’t think she was that bad. Mind you, she still had a horrible temper and she was known to have kicked a few guys’ asses, or their twins. But she didn’t have the predilection to immediately just kill the offending person that Nathan assumed she had because she was a vampire.
He was such a good looking and dangerous man himself that she couldn’t get over how very circumspect he became around her at times. Fortunately, he had broken through this conditioning occasionally. Michael, her boss in a way, had spent a thousand years making sure his strictures were followed on pain of death.
But Michael had disappeared. She wasn’t sure if that was due to enemy action or prearranged intention on his part to leave her to clean up his mess. If it was the former, then that was a pretty significant tell that she was in over her head by an enormous amount. He had a thousand years of experience and was the baddest ass for a group of badasses that made hardened military men feel the need to get religion. Dangerous men know dangerous enemies.
This led her to conclude there was a very good chance he was still around. Where, she had no idea. She hoped and prayed that he was trying to find out more about a serum that helped create intelligent Nosferatu. If the forsaken, the splinter group of Michael’s family that believed that humans should be a subjugated race, truly had a workable serum, then they had potentially billions of easily created cannon fodder for their army.
Since she knew nothing for sure, she couldn’t accidentally give anything away.
She had originally been created to take the place of Bill, a vampire who had been killed in an ambush in Virginia a little less than a year ago. She knew that getting back in contact with the government agent who was the liaison with Bill and see what, if any, operations needed her skills was a necessary step.
She also needed to talk with Stephen. He was one of Michael’s immediate children and lived on the other side of the Carpathian Mountains. He was the parent of Petre, who she had killed, and was as a consequence still getting his imaginary dust out of her hair.
Nathan had wanted her to go get permission before she took out Petre, but she decided that introducing herself to the UnknownWorld in a stricture bending fashion was required to get the respect that was necessary to move forward an agenda even Michael didn’t know needed to occur.
Activities that included eventually getting the world prepared for a possible intergalactic war.
But before that happened, she was going to get a nice pair of high heels.
Washington D.C., USA
The phone rang twice before Frank Kurns, the liaison between the UnknownWorld and the government, picked it up. “This is Frank.” His rough voice, a little weak after almost a hundred years of living, wouldn’t win any Tony awards.
He was in his office, below the ground under an old government building in Washington D.C. It worked out well for him and those he might have to meet who wanted to remain anonymous or out of the sun. There were two old tunnels he could access from his level. One of the access ways was left over from World War II and one he had built in the 70s. That one didn’t show up on any plans for the building, historical or current.
The voice on the other end of the line was a mellow, deep male baritone. “Good evening, Frank. It’s Gerry.” Gerry was the head of the American Pack Council and the Alpha of the New York Pack, Nathan’s direct Alpha.
“Good evening, Gerry. I’ve been expecting a call from you for the last few days. How can I help you?” Since Frank had asked a favor of Nathan, Gerry’s second, a week and a half ago he had expected to hear from Gerry when Nathan failed to contact him.
“I’ve got an update, if you can make heads or tails of it, and a concern.”
“Let’s hear both.” Frank got comfortable in his chair.
“First, the update. Not sure it makes a lot of sense to me, but my second sent me an email via a third party I’m not that familiar with. Says to let you know the lady was found, she was fully grown and no dad in sight. I’m going out on a limb here and assume this has to do with Michael?”
“Yes. Yes it does. I suspect the fully grown part means that the woman is a vampire now. That isn’t going to sit well with her dad necessarily, but the other option would be she was dead. I’ll have to find a way to make sure he at least knows she didn’t die. Although I do wonder why he didn’t pass this on to me himself.”
Gerry barked a little laugh on the end of the line. “Frank, you know Nathan. He’s going to be pretty circumspect about anything he does around a vampire, even a young one that might not be all that strong. He would be concerned ‘daddy’ would show up. Although I’m not so sure she is weak. Nathan’s one of the most careful guys in my pack. He must be with the vampire if he didn’t call you directly. I imagine she doesn’t want to talk with you yet.”
“Then why did he get ahold of you and why isn’t he concerned about updating you?”
“Well, I suspect she didn’t absolutely forbid communicating with me. He has a responsibility to try to keep me in the loop and through me, you. Why she isn’t communicating with you would be a question I have. Do you know much about this new Vamp?”
Frank considered his responses. Right now, he needed backing any way he could get it. He had a lot of operations going pear-shaped because there wasn’t an operative of Bill’s caliber he could rely on. He had lost twenty-two men in seventeen raids, all of them black ops, because he didn’t have access to one of Michael’s family to help him out.
Since Michael and Carl had disappeared, he had no way to contact and coerce any of Michael’s family to help. Michael was the vampire based in North America that ran the family. There were some vampires in South America, but that was a forsaken zone and Frank never connected with them. They would certainly be ones to bite the hands that fed them. Well, the hands, arms, necks and so on.
Frank answered Gerry’s question. “Yes. Her name is Bethany Anne Reynolds and she is, or was, an operative in a semi-black agency based here in Washington D.C.. I’m not sure I have all of the particulars about how long it takes to convert someone to a vampire, but I didn’t think it took more than a week, maybe two. Certainly not longer than a month and she’s been missing for over seven months. What did you mean earlier about not so sure she’s weak? I’m pretty sure that Michael took care of her conversion. That should just about assure she’s going to be pretty strong.”
There was a pause on the line. Gerry finally spoke, drawing out his word as he was finishing his thought, “Weeellll, that would make sense. Rumor has it that the Brasov pack in Romania where Nathan went has suffered several highly placed members’ deaths. Nathan didn’t say he was in the hospital and while I wouldn’t want to take Nathan on, I feel pretty confident that he didn’t take out the seven Weres that are rumored to be dead right now. Oh, and one vampire.”
“What!” Frank was astonished at this information. He knew that given the right situation, Nathan Lowell certainly could have taken out seven pack members. So long as he didn’t have to fight them all at once. Frank would bet against any one or two Weres taking Nathan down by themselves. But, he highly doubted Nathan killed seven Weres and a vampire. One, his task wasn’t to get involved, just to locate and report his findings. Two, Frank couldn’t imagine what would happen that might cause Nathan to get involved beyond the find-and-report request Frank asked of him. It wasn’t like he had someone he c
ared about and Frank doubted that Nathan would lose his sense of self-preservation by falling for Bethany Anne, even as pretty as she was.
“Yeah. European Council has been hearing about some shady connections between the Brasov pack, Alpha Algerian, and Petre, one of Stephen’s kids. Now, the Council was contacted by someone from the pack in Brasov about midway down in the hierarchy. Seems someone cleaned out half the pack starting at the top. When this person went to get information from Petre, his house was trashed from a fire with two burnt bodies inside. One of them had an arm, and get this, a head missing. They found the burnt skull on the other side of the room. They found one other crispy body. These two bodies were the Were officers that hung with Petre for daytime protection. They were able to find Petre’s exits and found one that opened up about two hundred yards away. There was a bloody bear trap sprung by the hole. They could still smell a little of Petre’s blood on the trap, but no Petre.”
Frank’s mind was furiously trying to work out the ramifications of everything Gerry was telling him. He needed to get more information and Frank’s advisor was most likely not permitted to contact him now. Wonderful.
“Damn, Gerry. Now you’ve given me more than a headache, I’m afraid to ask what your concerns might be. Want to share them with me?”
Frank heard Gerry sigh on the other side of the line. “Yeah. It’s the young and dumb. They haven’t seen a really scary vampire in years and now they’re starting to act up. The Council can put a lid on it for just so long before either a vampire needs to take care of it, or the Council will have to make a decision which way they really want to go with this ‘not telling the world’ stricture. When we had Michael to lay the blame on, it was easy to just say it wasn’t in our power to deal with. Now Michael’s gone missing, at least that’s the rumor…”
Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Set One: Books 1-7, Death Becomes Her, Queen Bitch, Love Lost, Bite This, Never Forsaken, Under My Heel, Kneel or Die (Kurtherian Gambit Boxed Sets) Page 22