Well, that was faster than I thought.
Tales Around The Supper Table published today.
A snippet:
__________
“Peace, seidrman.”
It was a whisper, barely louder than the breeze around us, and conveyed the same kind of quality you would expect if a Harlequin romance novel went emo, got a Ph.D in Literature, and spent a century or so wandering through a thesaurus trying out complicated synonyms for boredom. I took a closer look: it was a male, model-thin and pale white, with shoulder-length hair that the breeze fluttered playfully about. His face had never seen acne, nor a whisker, and came equipped with a chin you could split logs with. The chest was bare to what Texas thinks of as an autumn chill, also completely hairless and cut with a decent amount of muscles above skin-tight leather pants. I knew, just knew, that the eyes would be blue and piercing.
I gave the lady a little shove in its direction, safed and holstered the Wilson, before closing my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose and gently shaking my head. “You brought a vampire into Wichita Falls? Are you nuts?”
My ears flicked around as I noticed the sleepy annoyance radiating from the gravestones. Thing is: a vampire isn’t an undead. A vampire is a dead body that got colonized by a mostly-sentient fungus with aspirations and a really good PR team. And they tend to annoy the actual undead.
The lady waved a hand dismissively, “It’s not like we’re in Chicago, or New Orleans, or L.A., even. I think Jean-Pierre can handle Podunk easy enough.”
I was willing to bet that before his corpse got colonized by the magical equivalent of over-sexed mildew, what was standing in front of me was named Phil, or Bob, or Frank, but that’s a damned vampire for you.
This time the whisper had overtones that could be best described as attempting to muster enough Give-A-Damn to become a sneer: “I, who taught Machiavelli, who played the intricacies of the Court of Louis Catorce the way Mozart played with music. I have little to fear from these mortals.”
“Yeah, well, they don’t do ‘intricacy’ around here. They do dynamite and bulldozers at noon.” I attempted to poke the lady somewhere that I wouldn’t get slapped for, fail, and settled for making finger quotes, “And the next time I see you, it’ll be in a solemn press release from the Sheriff’s Office lamenting you getting your ass killed while resisting arrest.”
She cocked her head at me, trying to conceal her amusement at the thought of the rube attempting to protect her, while the vampire leaned against the side of a mausoleum, probably getting ennui all over the marble. Eww.
__________
If you want the rest, you’ll have to buy the book.
LawDog
Ohhh, HELL yes…
Cool!
Ulises from California
Did. Yours is the best story. Please say you're doing more in that world.
Bought it as soon as Peter Grant announced it was out – read it – loved it – want more!
That was an amazing story! I could almost imagine you were writing that from personal experience. As a matter of fact, most of the stories in there are great. As is customary, not every story hits the mark for every reader but it's well worth the money.
Bought it. read it. enjoyed it. This is a fascinating world. Please write more in it.
Bought my copy. The snippet reminds me of when my City Marshall and I toured a local cemetery late one night on a quest for reported trespassers. We didn't find anything but I certainly regretted all the horror movies I watched as a kid.
Sold.
"I'm a-fixing" to work my way down to that story. Working a couple books and anthologies now.
Just clicked the Kindle thingy. On my list after a couple on the latest Baen web bundle.
Read your story. Liked it a LOT.
In fact, it gave me an idea for a nasty magic item for D&D games… bwa ha ha 🙂
Ordered the dead tree edition… will be here soon. Been too busy to do much reading of late, figure this will be a great companion at deer camp next month.
Magnus Pappa Gumbo approves!
. . . and now I see your affinity for Foxes, Sir!
Okay, inquiring nitpicker minds want to know: What happened to the "doll-in-the-box"? A dangling thread leading to the next much-anticipated story perhaps?
… all right, it's three days and my ribs are still sore from laughing. Can you put a price on vampire love? The answer is yeas.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book, but the line I remember most is "probably getting ennui all over the marble. Eww." Great line.
Working on it. The lead story with the dragon named Marie is a fine start.
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Well. Da Intarwebs ate my polished, literate and vitally fascinating comment. So.
SOLD! To the gentleman in back, wearing a greenish coat, cowboy hat and packing a Hi-Power on his right leg.