On the Hunt for a Crystal Skull

posted by Nancy
I'm happy to have bestselling author Jessica Andersen back in the Lair. Jessica is the author of the hot, enthralling paranormal romance Nightkeeper series. She has also written more than twenty category romantic suspense novels, which have been nominated for the RITA award and RT Reviewers Choice award.

Today she'll tell us about her Nightkeepers-related novella, CRYSTAL SKULL, in the new On the Hunt anthology.

Welcome, Jessica!

Hey, Banditas, and thanks for having me out again to talk about running, screaming, sex, the end of the world, Mayan archaeology, and more sex ;-) This week I’m celebrating the release of CRYSTAL SKULL, the first (and only) novella in the Nightkeepers’ series, which is part of ON THE HUNT, a fabulous anthology with stories also from Gena Showalter, Shannon K Butcher and Deidre Knight.

Without further ado, on to the questions!

Who are the Nightkeepers, and how does this story fit within their continuity?

The Nightkeepers are the last survivors of an ancient race of magi sworn to protect us from the doomsday foretold for 12/21/2012. But as we get closer and closer to the end date and the danger ramps up, the Nightkeepers are desperate for reinforcements.

CRYSTAL SKULL falls outside the main storylines of the Nightkeeper books, but it feeds into the next big book, STORM KISSED, which will be out in June 2011. So if you’ve never read a Nightkeeper book before, you can totally pick up CRYSTAL SKULL without missing anything … but if you’re a Nightkeeper fan, you’ll get a couple of the inside jokes.

What's your personal grounding in Mayan culture?

When I was an annoyingly bright little kid (you know, the kind who finished the year’s work in the first few weeks, got bored, and started disrupting class), the school was more than happy for my parents to take me away for a few weeks every spring, down to the Yucatan. I kept a journal and did a presentation when I got back, and each year I got to talk about a different set of ruins we’d been to. Those experiences have always stuck with me, and I try to bring the sense of wonder I felt back then to the books as I write them now.

Who are the hero and heroine?

The hero, JT, is both a protector and a loner. He’s been down in the rainforests of the former Mayan Empire for years, fighting vampire demons who are coming through one specific ruin. When gorgeous lady archaeologist named Natalie rolls into town, JT convinces the locals to let her team excavate, hoping to find the hellmouth the vamps are coming through. He never expects to fall for her, though … or to discover that they’re connected by far more than scorching chemistry.

Can we see an excerpt?

Sure thing!! Here goes …

The instincts Natalie had been ignoring suddenly lashed at her, through her, bringing images of jaguars and the recent livestock kills in the area. She was a woman alone, unarmed. Stupid move, Nat. Her heart lurched into her throat as she lunged for the Jeep, and the weapon within it.

She was a few paces short of the vehicle when a dark blur erupted from the greenery and slammed into her, sending her crashing into the side of the Jeep and then down. High-pitched squeals battered her eardrums, making her head ring, and she screamed as a dark-furred, red-eyed creature leaned over her, its batlike face splitting into a three-cornered leer of moist, inhuman hunger that she had seen before, carved in stone.


Camazotz!

Instead of arms, it had elongated wings with tattered sails and wickedly barbed claws at the ends of the bony struts. Its dark brown, almost black skin was covered with patches of mismatching fur, and it smelled terrible, like a rotting animal carcass. The miasma brought tears, though not before she saw up close and personal that it was male.

Panicked, she tried to worm her way under the Jeep, screaming, “Help me!”

A pair of claws hooked her arm, dragged her out. Pain slashed through her. Terror. Sobbing, she kicked at the creature, but caught only air as it hauled her upright, screeching almost above the level of her hearing.

Its mouth split wide, revealing a black cavern of a throat framed by long, curved teeth.

“Help!” Natalie thrashed against the creature’s hold. She was all alone, in the middle of nowhere, JT wasn’t home, and—

Automatic gunfire slammed out of the nearby forest and into the bat creature.

The bullets ripped into the thing’s upper body, blowing back a spray of blackish blood and chunks. The creature reeled and dropped her. But incredibly, horribly, it spun toward the new threat as black ichor rained down from its wounds.

Seeing the flash of a weapon and the curve of a man’s shoulder in the forest, Natalie scrambled up and screamed, “Kill it!”

“Get down!”

She flung herself flat as a heavy thump split the air and a fist-size missile caught the creature in the midsection and then detonated. Hot, oily black sprayed and the thing flew backward and went down in a limp mass.

“Oh, God. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.” Natalie lurched to her feet as her rescuer emerged from the rain forest, cradling a big double-barrel across his body.

On one level she recognized JT; she knew his voice, knew the way he moved. On another level, though, the man who stepped out of the shadows and into the fading sunlight was a stranger.

The JT she knew was clean shaven, well dressed, a strangely urbane oasis in the middle of the tropical wilderness. The JT who faced her now shared the same powerful five-ten frame, skull trim, and cool gray eyes. But he wore several days’ worth of scruff and hard-used bush clothes, and his body was strung bandolier-style with an arsenal of weapons and ammo. He carried himself with the tough purpose of a soldier, moving on the soundless feet of a hunter. And he had just saved her butt.

He once told her the guns in his foyer were for hunting the occasional man-eater among the big cats in the area. Now she knew different.

“Chan camazotz,” she whispered the nickname the villagers used for him. Death-bat killer. She had thought it was a metaphor.

Apparently not.

His eyes were hard and hot, almost feral. “Did he get you?”

A harsh, ugly sob ripped itself from her chest. “That was . . . It was . . . Oh, JT!” She flung herself at him.

He caught her, his arms banding around her with crushing force. Relief poured through her as she burrowed into him, feeling the solid strength of his muscles and the way her body fit against his. His warmth surrounded her, and his voice rasped as he said her name, over and over again, into her hair. At first she thought she was shaking with fear and shock. Then she realized she wasn’t the one shaking.

“JT?” She pulled away a little so she could look up at him. “What—”

He interrupted her with a kiss.

There was nothing soft or urbane about his lips on hers this time, nothing civilized about the way he crushed her mouth with his, the way he gripped her. But she was suddenly hanging onto him just as hard.

What's up next for the Nightkeepers?

STORM KISSED is next up—it’s the story of the strongest and toughest of the magi to date: big, bad Snake Mendez, who prefers to be called Dez and may or may be a new man since his release from prison and selection as a super-powerful Triad mage. He’s got one soft spot, though, in the form of former bounty hunter Reese Montana, who was his first and only love … and was responsible for his incarceration. These two have some serious chemistry going for them, along with some major issues. And can you say hot? Wheee….

Anyway, thanks so much for having me on today, Banditas! Best of luck rooster hunting, and I’ll see you in the comments!

We love having you! Wow, that looks hot! And the cover is red, in keeping with our theme this month. How handy . *g*

Jessica is giving away one copy of ON THE HUNT, signed by her but not the other authors, and a copy of: 2012 End of the World Calendar. This is the description she sent me of the calendar:

The Last Calendar You Will Ever Own

A 23.97 month calendar packed with digital artwork from all over the world. Features a countdown to the End of the World, prophecies, and information regarding December 21, 2012. Any theories or predictions you may have heard are explained here: Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, Time Wave Zero, Webbot, Pole Shift, World War III, The Bible, Solar Flares, Gamma Ray Bursts, Global Warming, Cataclysm, Planet X, Hopi Prophecy, Dead Sea Scrolls, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Rapture, and much more.

This calendar is HUGE! There are 52 pages total and it measures 12x12 which opens up to 12x24. Ironically printed on Eco Friendly paper, and coated with Matte Aqueous (AQ) Coating for protection. There is no other calendar out there quite like this. It's the perfect holiday gift for any 2012 enthusiast.

So tell us, would you go searching the jungle for a rare artifact, or would you rather search via Google? Who's your favorite fictional archaeologist? Who's your favorite Nightkeeper or winnikin? Feel free to ask Jessica any questions that come to mind, too.

Don't forget to check out the Healthy Heart tip and free book opportunity below.



The healthy heart tip for February 2 is: Quality time is one of the most meaningful gifts. Bundle up and plan an active outing such as sledding, ice skating, gathering wood for a fire, or if you’re feeling adventurous, visit an indoor rock wall.

Go Red for Women on February 4

Romance Writers of America and the American Heart Association have partnered to raise awareness of heart disease in women and encourage you to join us in wearing red on February 4, National Wear Red Day®. Visit http://www.goredforwomen.org/ to learn how to fight heart disease.

And just in case you missed it....

Sign Up for the Go Red BetterU Program and Receive Two Free Romance Novel E-Books

From Feb. 1 through May 31, 2011, receive one free romance novel e-book when you sign up for the American Heart Association's BetterU Program and one after you complete week six of the program. And look for the Eat Smart for Your Heart limited-edition magazine (that features this offer) on newsstands and in a grocery store near you.

To sign up for the BetterU program, visit http://www.goredforwomen.org/betteru/index.aspx.
(Go Red For Women is trademarked by the American Heart Association, Inc. Romance novel downloads provided by Belle Books.)

Make My Day, Make My Night

.

Oh man, what is wrong with me?

I'm suffering for sure. I've caught a cold from sleeping under my window. You see, my window still has the air conditioning from the summer in it. I don't want to take it out of the window because I have absolutely nowhere to put that big motherfucker. It's the size of a fucking washing machine, and it took a fork lift to bring it into my window. Check that shit out.

As big as this bitch is though, she still leaves gaps to the left and right of the window where it's accordion wings don't span long enough. The the genius maintenance men here propped a piece of styrofoam up in the window, to fill the gap.  It worked well in the summertime, keeping the cool in, but in the wintertime, it can't do well enough to keep the cold out.
   

Now I like to sleep at the foot of my bed. Why? Because I've always been that way. I hate the heads of beds and I tend to do that when I have a bed that I sleep in long enough. When I buy a bed I generally buy neutral headed beds exactly because of this. Well, my head is directly under the open window, and it picked up a draft that night. So that made me a sick bitch the next morning.

I hate being a Skek, but that's what I appear to be, just looking at myself in a photograph that someone was nice enough to post of me on FaceBook. No, don't ask, I will not tell you where it is, all I can say is that looking upon it makes me ill. Everyone thinks they look a certain way to the world and photographs either support their view or dismantle it. Photographs of myself dismantles me. I'm under the impression that I look a million times better than my image portrays. The way my body looks, the way clothes hang on it, the roundness of my features. I shake my head....this is not me.

I slip into further depression. This is just more bad news in a week of bad news. I knew that I was about to get bad news this week anyway, but not so much in such a short length of time. A string of suffering that threatens to make me cry out in agony and then slip into a lake of dark pitch, finding bottom, 'getting low'. I can think of nothing to lift my spirits any more. Nothing keeps the pain at bay and gives me hope for a better tomorrow.

There is a ring from my doorbell. I think to ignore it but it comes back a second time more insistent. I open the door to see the Bat Faced Bitch on the other side. Yeah? I ask her. "Are you the one that upgrades the Internet?" What? Updates? No. "Because I'm trying to get on the Internet and I can't and I'm trying to figure out why." So I explain to her that sometimes you can get a WIFI signal but you're not allowed to participate if its not open to the public. "Oh, so it's locked," she looked at me, nodding, realizing her predicament. I didn't even realize what she was saying either until later. She was asking me what was wrong with the Internet connection that I provide. I told her that it was locked, so now she can no longer get it free.

"Is that why I keep getting put in your administration password?" Yeah, that's why. She looked me up and down, scowled, "Okay," and walked off back down the hall. I closed the door, went back to my desk and my laptop and the Internet...and I smiled. She had made my day.

Hobobob

What The Hell Is Wrong With Me?

.

I'm miserable when I'm sick.

I know when that shit is coming. It's like a dark cloud on the horizon. What is that? My nose burns as if someone put out two lit cigarettes in them. They burn, they itch, the burn much more, until my eyes turn into two lumps of hot charcoal briquettes. Then the sneezing and the headaches begin. I instantly take a pain killer and make tons of tea. Gallons. I'm not fucking around. I'll drink my weight in tea within the hour.

Then the weakness, the body aches, the chills. It's time to go down,  and I do. I give the fuck up, but only for a few hours. I try to sleep, but my nose runs in both directions. Forward, they pour out onto my face and pillows, leaving me sleeping in a pool of snot.  If the sinuses drip in reverse, I wake up with a sore throat, many times without a voice and nausea. It's a rough ride for me for the first day of the real symptoms. The day prior is just a nuisance, the day after, that's when the real fun begins.

Yeah That's when the little devil comes out, and I prove to the little microbes in my body that I care less for my life than they do. They're having a party fucking around with my functions, screwing with my immune system, and causing them to go on the attack. I get the battle that is raging in my body, so what do I do? I'm God of this stack of mud. If I was a football field, I'd cause it to snow.  Yeah, that's right. I turn up the volume.

I get out of the bed and get to work. I work on cleaning and writing and anything else I can do to push my body. This, they say, actually weakens the immune system. I understand that. But as our football coach used to say when the players began to bitch about the falling snow, "the opposing team is on the same ball field." This is so true. So if my immune system is weakened, so is the enemy microbes. And if they are knocked down a peg or two, all this chemical shit and this tea shit that I keep taking in can also kick ass. And it does.

That's the cool thing about it. You'll feel both sick and better sooner. I mean, already, I'm doing much better. My sinuses aren't burning, but the body aches are still present, so I hit up more pain killers. See? Just throw your pharmaceuticals, and grandma's old recipes at it now. They'll all work because the microbes, the Tide Walkers-the Shit Talkers that they once were when they jumped the body in the first place are now not so tough. Fuck them.

So now, I'm feeling much better and can blog, as you can plainly see. I'm still listening to the door though. Lately, the crows outside have been very active. Very. They drive me crazy in front of my door. Constantly talking, laughing, yelling. And now...now there is some strange knocking. Soft, unmistakable knocking against the door that makes me stop and send chills up and down my spine. What the fuck? Who the fuck could that be?

Soft knocking. Low to the door. Three soft times. Rap, rap, rap. And then its gone. Sometimes it happens when they are outside, yammering, and other times it's just quiet out there and yet, still there is the knock. Even at odd hours of the night. Raping on my door. I want to snatch my door open but I fear who I may find on the other side and what they would want. What if it's some crazy ghoul who wants to rush into the apartment? By not ringing the bell, it wouldn't draw the attention of the neighbors, and if fast enough, can crush my consciousness before I can yell out.

Then it cuts off my feet and hands and pulls the long bones straight out of my body, masticating them in their teeth, swallowing the brittle pieces, marrow and all. Then rolls me over on my stomach and tears my skull, spine, ribcage, and pelvic bone from my back and bag those in a bag of dried flesh for later digestion. Then my entrails go into the microwave to be cooked thoroughly and kill the stink of internal organs. That mud pudding goes into another flesh bag and then it leaves, wearing my skin like a long swallowtail coat. The only things left over are my hands and feet. They're just too hard to eat because it's mostly bone and not much meat.

Naaah, I'd rather keep the door closed and let sleeping dogs lie.

Besides, I'm still sick. Uggh, I think I'll go lay down a bit.

Hobobob

Babies in Paris

My darlings, my mom also sent us some photos of our family in Paris, right after my sister and I were born. I totally adore this breastfeeding photo, it looks so tender and made me a little teary.
And I'm also amazed that her clothes look so current!
You can see Versailles in the background...
My mom delivered us by C-section at the American Hospital of Paris and stayed for a whopping ten days afterwards to rest. My mom also said the hospital food was amazing, including slices of Camembert.
The view from the Eiffel Tower...
I really loved looking through these; thank you so much, Mama! It was the best birthday present.

TUXY TUESDAY WITH DOMINO: BEAUTY IN WINTER!

There is a certain beauty in winter -- the crisp white snow with bluish shadows cast by the sun is a PURRfect foil for Domino.  When she poses against such a backdrop, its beauty is increased a thousandfold.

The tuxy black stands out sharply in these scenes, while the tuxy white sometimes appears to disappear into it.

Demure Domino

Saucy Temptress

Tuxy on Tiptoe

Poised to Leap

Sultry Slide

Wistful Glances

On the Go! 

Full Stop!

Catsual Stroll

Feline Bushed!

 Leaning Against the Wind

Tuxy Toesies Avoiding the Snow

And then Taking the Plunge!

Sparkling in the Winter Sun

Even though the temPURRatures are freezing, and the snow is piled high, PURRhaps now you can see beauty in winter, too.  All you have to do is look!

From the Library: Movie Magic—A Tribute to John Barry

Today on gullar sahir we present a tribute to the magnificent film and television work of the late John Barry, who passed away last Sunday. we present a programme of great themes from the movies and from television, and in particular featuring the work of John Barry, perhaps best-known for his James Bond music but also for Out of Africa, Dancing with Wolves, Somewhere in Time and many more evocative pieces. We'll be playing extensive selections from his work, along with music from other great film composers from Addinsell to Zimmer.

John Barry Prendergast was born in Yorkshire in 1933, the son of a cinema owner father and pianist mother, so perhaps it was likely that he might become involved in the field where music and film overlap. After initial training as a classical pianist he turned to jazz and founded the John Barry Seven in the late 1950s – the group which backed Adam Faith on some of his hits. He moved into writing for TV commercials, the most memorable perhaps being those for Sunsilk Shampoo, such as The Girl With The Sun In Her Hair, and went on to write TV themes including as The Persuaders.

Barry's first movie work came with Beat Girl in 1960. He came to the attention of the producers of the Bond movies as a result of his popular music success, and his initial arrangement of Monty Norman's theme led to his writing scores for 11 movies in the series, of which his music for Goldfinger and its theme sung by Shirley Bassey are perhaps the most memorable. His first Oscar came in 1967 with Born Free's memorable score and theme music, and he won further Oscars for Dances with Wolves, The Lion In Winter and Out Of Africa. His most recent film score was 2001's Enigma, about the codebreakers at Bletchley Park. He also received four Grammys, as well as receiving BAFTA and Golden Globe awards. His other scores included Walkabout, The Deep, the evocative Somewhere in Time, Body Heat, Jagged Edge, Peggy Sue Got Married, Chaplin and Cry, the Beloved Country. He also released albums of non-film compositions, such as The Beyondness Of Things (1999). John Barry was made a Freeman of the City of York in 2002.

Barry's musical trademark was his use of deep, swelling chords on strings, brass and woodwinds: as a result you could always tell a John Barry piece a mile off, but each was always evocative and different. His death marks a great loss to both music and film.

Today's programme is presented by Elrik Merlin and produced by gullar sahir in conjunction with our friends at the Alexandrian Free Library Consortium of Second Life. You can listen to the programme in-world now at http://main.radioriel.org, or simply click here to start your player, if your browser is configured to do so. Listeners in the United States are encouraged to tune in using this link: http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-riel/tune_in

For more information on the Alexandrian Free Library, current exhibits and the work of Consortium members in general, please visit the Alexandrian Free Library website, or one of their branches in-world.

Image: John Barry In Concert - John Barry & Paul Bateman at the Royal Albert Hall, 2006 by Geoff Leonard (Wikimedia Commons)