Countdown Excerpt 1

We're counting down to the OFFICIAL release of HELLSBANE in mass trade paperback,

November 20, 2012 

So I've planned some fun while we wait for the big day. Each day I'll be posting a never-before-posted excerpt from HELLSBANE! And then after you've enjoyed the slice, you can enter my giveaway. You can enter once a day, every day, until the release (November 20th) when the winners will be announced HERE.

What can you win? (excellent question!)

Runner up will win this cool Angel Tarot card deck:

And the Winner will win a print copy of HELLSBANE in mass trade paperback which includes a never-before-seen BONUS chapter!

So don't forget to enter after the excerpt! You can fill out the form or leave your answer and info in the comments.

Okay...so without further delay, here is today's EXCLUSIVE excerpt from HELLSBANE (book 1)

~*~

CHAPTER FIVE

I love my mom. And from outside the family, she seems almost...sane.

I checked my watch. She and my sister were only twenty minutes late, which meant I still had another fifteen or so minutes to wait—according to Hellsbane time. My family takes being fashionably late to a whole new level—myself included. It’s one of our long-running jokes.

“You done?”

I glanced up at the potbellied guy standing next to my table, white paper-wrapped sandwich and matching Styrofoam cup in hand. “No,” I said. “Plus I’ve got people coming to join me. So...sorry.”

The big guy huffed, angry, and waddled off mumbling, “This ain’t no TGI-friggin-Friday’s, lady. Eat and get out.”

I don’t have a problem sitting alone in restaurants or going to movies by myself. Sometimes I actually prefer it. But I’d been getting dagger stares from the other customers since I’d dared to sit down at one of the busy restaurant tables with just a Coke and order of fries.

The Primanti Brothers restaurant, in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, had started life as a lunch cart, then moved to the brick-and-mortar location still holding to a kind of lunch counter mentality. Over the past seventy-eight years it hadn’t changed much. They’d added a wait staff, but locals knew for the fastest service it was best to place their order at the counter—using as few words as possible—get their food, and, with any luck, find an open table or seat at the bar on their own. It’s not that the wait staff wasn’t good, but trying to get a server to notice you in the busy place could leave one...frustrated.

You were supposed to eat your food and get out. People were constantly moving, tables filling and emptying. That’s the way the regulars liked it. And today was no different.  The place was busy, seating was at a premium, and I was taking up space. Oh well.

I wasn’t sure if it was the hater vibe being focused on me or something else, but the longer I sat there, the more my stomach felt like it was trying to make the US gymnastics team all on its own. When my belly gave a particularly strong roll that made me feel like it was in my throat, I decided to take a quick trip to the bathroom before I gave Primanti Brothers back their fries.

I zigzagged through tables and customers to the back hallway and pushed the door on the right marked ladies.

“You always make a target of yourself, lass? Or do ya just have a death wish today?” A weird little guy was beside me, when he hadn’t been an instant before. He leaned against the wall by the door.

I’d backed away too fast and slammed against the other side of the hall. My stomach roiled, my heart thumping in my throat. “Where’d....How—Who are you? What do you want?”

“Relax,” he said, folding his arms and crossing one ankle over the other. “If I was here to take your head, I’d have it by now. Believe me.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Aye, but it’s what you were thinkin’. At least for a wee bit there in between the ‘How’d he do that?’ and the ‘Should I make a run for it or just scream?’ thoughts.” He leaned toward me and winked. “I don’t recommend either.”

His accent made me think Irish, maybe Scottish. Couldn’t tell which. He was only two or three inches taller than I was, which made him pathetically short for a man, and his cockiness totally unjustified. He had the kind of red hair that’s more brassy, almost orange, and he wore it long to his chin, with kinky wild curls and enough freckles to make me think boy rather than man.

But his mannerisms, the way he held himself, moved, and smiled, with a wise glint in his green eyes, belied the first-glance impression, adding years to his age. I figured he was a year older than I was, maybe two. And judging by his rumpled clothes, a brown leather vest, T-shirt, loose jeans, and battered work boots with broken shoestrings, he wasn’t a nine-to-five kinda guy.

“You read my mind?”

“Aye. Wasn’t hard. You’ve got no shielding a’tall. Bess to work on that. Been reading you since you walked in the door there. Couldn’t help it if I’d tried. You’re like a bloody bullhorn.”

“What are you?” Crap, two days as an illorum, and I was already about to be hacked to ribbons for a second time.

His hand dropped to the hilt of a sword at his side. I hadn’t noticed it until he touched the silver pommel. “What do you think, lassie? Right now, I’m what’s standing between you and certain death, I am. Where’s your sword?”

His gaze dropped to my side and my hands flexed. There was nothing to grab. I’d left my sword in the Jeep. Sue me. The thing kept poking me in the ribs or the small of my back when I sat. There was no good place on my belt to keep it.

“Near enough,” I said. 

~*~

I hope you enjoyed today's EXCLUSIVE excerpt from HELLSBANE (book 1) and check back tomorrow for another never-before-posted slice of the book.

Now, wouldn't you love to have your own crisp new copy? Or be the runner up and win a cool Angel Tarot Card deck? Take the time to enter below. You can either fill out the form or leave your info and answer in the comments. Good luck!