Of Cinder and Bone
Page 50
Without warning, the camera jerked sharply upward as a terrifying roar filled the air. Its view jostled back and forth facing the night sky until it focused on something flying past the moon and sweeping a shadow over the spectator. The onlooker gasped and raced behind a car parked across the street, peeking over the roof. Seconds later, a gun-metal grey dragon the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex landed in the middle of the street and blew an enormous gust of fire straight at the camera, which blacked out a moment later.
“We have unconfirmed reports of five deaths. Local officials are scrambling in response and trying to figure out the origin of the dragon, and whether it is at all related to the work of Dr. Rhett Jackson, the MIT scientist who cracked the method of cloning these animals a little over a month ago.”
As if on cue, Jack’s phone hollered, “Son of a bitch!”
He didn’t answer it. He couldn’t even hear it. He just kept staring at the footage as it played again, his eyes fixed on the long, sharp jaws of the dragon when it belched a pillar of fire at the unsuspecting innocent civilian. Five dead. The city was in peril, in chaos, and it was on the other side of the planet. There was nothing he could do but watch.
Kamala emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later while he was still staring transfixed at the television. “They did it, Kam. They brought Baba Yaga to life and now she’s loose in Tokyo.”
“Gods,” she whispered, her brown eyes wide as she walked around to see. “As if this night weren’t bad enough.”
He blinked at her, confused. “Why? What else happened?”
“I’m pregnant.”
FIN
To be continued in Of Blood and Ashes
Coming in 2017
Acknowledgments
To my mother, who is the most patient, kind, understanding, brilliant, helpful woman on the planet Earth and I will fight anyone who disagrees. You are my co-pilot. You are a great deal of the reason this book came to life and thrived, and I cannot thank you enough for all your help as well as your encouragement as I metaphorically ran with scissors writing this new book series. Thank you for believing. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being my inspiration.
To my father, who dreams even harder than I do. We’re both out there chasing after the things we want (mostly money) and we won’t stop for anything, not even sleep or sanity. Thank you for being the shining example of how to do what you love in the face of adversity, always and in spite of all the repeated failures.
To Sharon, who continues to be my role model, my confidant, and my north star each time I write something. No matter how busy you are, you have always found time for me and my crazy ravings and I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am for your insight into these characters. They wouldn’t be who they are without you.
To Bryan, who always stands steadfast in the wake of my many meltdowns and assures me that I’m not a walking garbage fire of an author. Thank you for your eternal support.
To Andy Rattinger, who took the precious time out of his busy schedule to help me conceptualize this novel and kept me from making more than a few rookie mistakes. You are the best writing sensei in the whole wide world. Thanks for caring about some total nobody you met through the Interwebs on Twitter.
To my family, who has every reason to commit me to an insane asylum, but has the grace and love not to rent me a rubber room every time I release a novel. Thank you for being there when I needed you through thick and thin.
To my friends, who are basically saints for putting up with me. Any time you flip a page and see how much these characters care about each other, you are the reason why. I have the best support system ever and I couldn’t have gotten this far without you.
To my fans, please for the love of God, don’t murder me for writing a cliffhanger. I mean, uh, thank you for taking a chance with a whole new series. I know it’s risky and scary, but you did it anyway and I don’t know how to express how much I love you for it. I truly hope that this wild ride was something you enjoyed and that you are as hungry for the next installment as I am, because I’m just getting started.
To Elisabeth Hewer, the genius poet who wrote that beautiful poem I used to open the novel and honestly helped guide Jack and Kamala where they needed to go as characters. Thank you so much for letting me use your phenomenal work.
To Kristen Bartoli, the insanely helpful and kind MIT post-doc who helped me with a boatload of bizarre research. If I ever get up your way, I’ve got a cup of coffee with your name on it, madam. Thank you so very much for putting aside time for my nonsense.
To Marginean Anca, thank you for the amazing cover.
To Forrest Sibley, Rochelle Zheng, Scott Barrois, Devin Myles Jennings, Nicholas Kutny, Aisha Haley, S.C. McCole, and the many authors of the KBoards community, thank you so much for your contributions.
To the new readers, thank you so much for reading and I truly hope that you had as much fun reading this novel as I did writing it. Well, maybe more fun. It was mostly me gross sobbing and eating junk food in between wishing for the quiet embrace of death.
Author’s Note
Is this thing on?
First of all, stop throwing rotten tomatoes at my head. Please. They’re smelly and it’s a waste of good fruit-slash-vegetable-in-denial.
Second of all, I think writing the first novel to a new series was possibly even harder than writing the last novel of my first series. I’m pretty sure I cranked out The Holy Dark in less than a year, and yet Of Cinder and Bone kicked my ass all up and down the year 2016. Honestly, it’s as much a dragon as Pete is: roaring and demanding to be heard at all costs.
Third of all, yes, you read that right. This isn’t just a random one-off. There will be at least three novels, possibly more if I have anything to say about it. Gasp! Kyoko’s writing a new series! Head for the hills!
Fourth of all, no, seriously, stop throwing those tomatoes.
Fifth of all, writing in a whole new genre is a thousand times more challenging than I expected. If any of you have been long time followers of mine, you might have heard the original concept for this series, and it’s nowhere near what you just read. I know, right? Before I even put a single word on the page, I had a long chat with my writing sensei where I figured out that the first concept I had in my head would cheat the readers of getting to know a really great character all because of Mangst (man + angst = mangst, by the way) and so I scrapped the idea and decided to slow the record down and focus on what lyrics were actually there. To my delight, I dug deeper and deeper until I hit what I hope is a diamond and not a giant shiny dragon turd.
Honestly, Jack and Kamala surprised me. I had a rough idea of who they were when they strolled up and introduced themselves to me on November of 2015. As I continued with them along their journey, I found out more than I ever expected to about what this novel is at its heart. I had envisioned a hard sci-fi novel and yet the two of them guided me elsewhere. It became more about chasing one’s demons than anything else. Except with this series, it’s not literal demons. I’m still writing about monsters, but this time they’re monsters in disguise.
I know what you’re probably thinking, though. You still want to kill me for that cliffhanger. Fair enough. It’s damn near Changes-levels of cruel. Well, throw rotten tomatoes at Jim Butcher for subconsciously influencing me to make my readers want to burn me at the stake. However, I promise it’s not a cheap gimmick. What’s in store for Jack and Kamala is going to be quite a ride, and honestly, I’m incredibly excited to see where the future leads them with that bomb we dropped on the last page.
Buck up, old chum. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stranger.
Last, but not least, this is the first novel I have finished without my beloved demon cat Tyger at my side. I lost him in August of 2016 and anyone who has had to say goodbye to their best friend knows that it’s a hell I wish on no man or woman. However, this novel was devoted to him because he really wa
s my dragon. For twelve long years, he roared and everything in the world seemed smaller and less scary to me. Thanks for teaching me to roar, Tyger. You will never be forgotten.
And thank you, dear readers, for hanging in there. I have so many more adventures for you. Dust off your bookshelves, grab a blanket and some tea, and let’s get to work.
See you soon, my dizzy little dreamers.
-Kyoko
1 “Shove all the planets in the solar system up my ass!”