A Non-Supernatural Mystery In Prague

First, though, private investigator Quille C. Davis will travel to Prague to question a psychic medium, who is also a murder suspect, in my Q.C. Davis mysteries.

While the Q.C. Davis mystery series is not supernatural, Prague’s long history of mysticism and alchemy make it an ideal home for the psychic medium character. And the city’s overall beauty makes me willing to have Quille spend time away from Chicago, which she (like me) loves and where she lives, practices law, and solves crimes.

Supernatural Books And Mystic Prague Nights

More on the new series, which will be a follow up to my Awakening Supernatural Thriller series, down the road. But to give you a hint, some highlights, photos, and ideas.

Simply being in Prague felt mystic, especially at night. Above is a statue on the famous Charles Bridge. 

And the monastery sparked many ideas for twists and turns in a new novel, as it included two halls of books. Look at the sign on one of them — perfect for a religious conspiracy thriller.

The Missing Bones

I also toured the convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia in Prague. (Hall and scale model of convent below.) What intrigued me most?

My guide told me that the crypt that bears the name of Agnes of Bohemia is not her final resting place. 

Turns out her supporters hid her bones from enemies after her death. They did such a great job that no one has ever found them.

I’m sure I can do something with that legend, or borrow from it.

Cathedrals And Castles

In Krakow, the Wawel Castle and the cathedral in it captured my imagination. In particular, the skull on one wall and what looks like a goat’s head with a sword thrust into it on the ceiling.

Why are both there? I’ll need research. Which will be fun and no doubt will lead to more ideas for plot twists.

Here’s the castle:

If you want to be first to know when the new supernatural thriller series begins or the new Q.C. Davis mystery is underway, click here to join my Readers Group email list and get a free Reader’s Guide to the original Awakening series.

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My mother was 42 years older than me.

She grew up in a time when questioning church authorities simply wasn’t done. She and my dad memorized doctrine as children. They didn’t talk about what it meant or why it had been decided the way it had, and they certainly weren’t asked whether they agreed with it.

My parents as adults weren’t against talking about issues or examining their faith. They found it interesting to look at what was said in the Bible and what it might mean. They encouraged us to think about moral and ethical questions.

All the same, there were certain aspects of faith that for my mom were not negotiable or open to question.

I remember her once telling me, “Your problem is you ask too many questions.”

Personal Support And Comfort:

Part of the reason the Church meant so much to my mother was that it was a great source of comfort for her throughout her life. When she hit hard times, praying was one way she found to deal with them. Also, the Church had a structure and a predictability that she found comfort and beauty in.

For that and other reasons her religion was very personal to her and very important, and it was hard for her to understand anyone (especially an “anyone” who was her child) who didn’t share that feeling or belief.

Some of my mom’s feelings for religion are reflected in Cyril Woods, the initial love interest/antagonist I created for Tara. While Cyril’s experiences are vastly different from my mother’s, he too has a very personal connection with his religious beliefs.

Cyril And Religion:

Cyril joins a religious brotherhood because a man who serves as a mentor to him urges him to do so. This mentor saves Cyril from becoming a very troubled and perhaps violent young man. Cyril connects his better life with the man’s religious beliefs. That’s why he finds it so hard when he begins to question those beliefs.

It feels to him as if he is abandoning the man who helped him so much.

Conflicts Between The Heart And Faith:

Cyril’s love for and admiration of Tara eventually becomes a huge challenge to his faith. Before Tara, everything his religious order required of him fit with Cyril’s own personal values.

But when his superiors begin to see Tara as an enemy, Cyril is at a loss.

He has been an actual soldier, serving in the Armed Forces, and he sees himself as a soldier still. In fact, he tells Tara he is a “soldier for our Lord.”

Being a soldier means following orders without question because that is the only way the military can operate efficiently.

So at first Cyril listens to his superiors despite his misgivings. Next, he becomes determined to convince them that they are wrong. That in itself is a big leap for him, and he is uncomfortable with it.

Later he is so uncomfortable that he turns on Tara in an awful and almost unforgivable way. While he blames her outwardly, inside he feels that he is weak and a failure because he can’t reconcile the disconnect between his religious faith and his feelings for her. He’s also not yet willing to examine his own beliefs and choose them (or not) for himself.

Finally, all of it is mixed up with his gratitude to his mentor and his fear that his mentor will no longer be there for him if he changes his religious beliefs.

These types of conflicts are real ones that real people face.

Almost everyone has had times when a belief they held was severely challenged by a tragic life event or even a happy life event.

I believe this is why Cyril is the character about whom I get the most reader questions and emails. Readers who haven’t finished the series nearly always say they can’t wait to find out what happens to him.

I can’t say where he ends up without spoiling his ending for those who have not yet read The Illumination. But I will say that I believe Cyril is a good person and always was. He simply had a long road before he figured out what he believed.

The post Values v. Religious Beliefs (a/k/a Why Readers Ask About Cyril) appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

The book begins with an unexpected and supernatural pregnancy. It also takes place in the modern day. At least at the moment, abortion is a legal option the protagonist would have.

Because of that, I knew I needed to think about the topic of abortion.

It’s Complicated

The situation is particularly complicated for Tara, the main character.

She has no reason to believe that she’s pregnant, as she’s never engaged in sexual intercourse. So it takes her some time to go to a college campus health center when she misses periods. When they tell her she’s pregnant, she assumes there was a mistake, which is what anyone would think in her circumstances.

The Awakening begins when Tara’s doctor tells her the second pregnancy test also is positive.

The two engage in a frank discussion of how pregnancy could possibly have happened. (In retrospect, the discussion was probably a little too frank. I’m sure it got me ruled out of certain advertising sites early on in the book’s life.)

The doctor has known Tara a long time and believes that she hasn’t engaged in activities that could lead to pregnancy. She does follow-up tests to be sure nothing else is wrong.

Once tests confirm the pregnancy the doctor raises the question of abortion.

She tells Tara she’ll need to make a decision quickly. The state where she lives, Missouri, puts a definite timeframe on when a woman can terminate a pregnancy. That deadline is quickly approaching.

This strikes Tara as extremely unfair. She had no reason to think she was pregnant and has just found out about it. It’s hard for her to think this through so quickly.

The Characters’ Views On Abortion

Minor spoiler below:

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Tara opts to continue her pregnancy. (If she hadn’t, it would have made for a very short book.)

Down the road (literally and figuratively) Tara talks with Cyril, an aspiring deacon from a religious Order that believes Tara’s child will have significance for the world as a messiah.

Cyril idealizes Tara. He says he’s so impressed that she never even considered abortion. To him, that adds to her perfection, as he sees abortion as wrong. He assumes Tara feels the same because her family, and her dad in particular, are very Catholic.

Tara says of course she considered it. It would be a way to put her life back to what she feels it should be. She abstained from sex because she understood how much responsibility and work were involved in parenting and she wanted to wait until she finished college and began medical school before taking any chances on becoming pregnant.

I felt no matter what her views on abortion overall might be, she wouldn’t be human if it didn’t cross her mind that terminating the pregnancy would return her to “normal” life.

Specific Reasons

Unique circumstances also surround Tara’s decision to have her baby.

Her youngest sister is struggling with cancer and may well have a very short life. It would be hard for Tara not to see her decision about continuing her pregnancy or not in connection with her little sister’s possible death.

Also, Tara has a wonderful support system.

It’s true that many of her friends and family fail her when she tells them about her pregnancy. But their reactions are about her being unable to explain how she became pregnant and their fears that she is either not being up front with them or is struggling with mental illness.

Had her pregnancy been a typical one, she would have had a lot of emotional support and as much financial help as her parents and boyfriend were able to offer. Her boyfriend and she probably would have gotten married, just a little bit earlier than planned. (Whether that would have been a good thing is another question.)

Why The Open Questions

That no one other than Cyril expresses a strong view on whether abortion is moral in Tara’s circumstances, or any circumstances, was what, for me, fit the story. The plot is about Tara’s unique experience and not about political issues.

It also reflects my belief that well-intentioned people with strong beliefs can differ for understandable reasons, whether or not I agree with them.

As I learned when researching a short nonfiction book about whether Catholic views about women influenced a U.S. Supreme Court decision on birth control (see How the Virgin Mary Influenced The United States Supreme Court: Catholics, Contraceptives, and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Inc.) they also differ on how they define the terms of the debate.

One reason the abortion debate is so complex is that medicine has a specific definition of abortion, and the Vatican uses a different one.

This difference means that the same statement by two different people can mean two entirely different things. Listeners or other people who join the debate might or might not know that.

What I strove for throughout the entire Awakening Series was to avoid black-and-white answers.

Most characters, including those who oppose Tara, believe they are doing what’s best for humanity.

No one, including Tara, gets an easy answer to “What’s the right thing to do in this situation?”

In the end, I hope this choice made for a more compelling story.

That’s all for today. Stop by next Wednesday when I’ll talk about why Cyril was my favorite character (after Tara) in The Awakening.

The post Questions, Abortion, And The Awakening Supernatural Thriller Series appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

A couple years ago, a friend from a book group sent me the perfect solution to my book problem. (Thanks, Andrea!) She invited me to join Goodreads.com.

What’s On Your Friends’ Shelves?

One of my favorite things about Goodreads is I can check out what other people have put on their shelves when I am trying to decide what to read next. I also created separate shelves for types of books I’ve read or want to read, including Wiscon 2014, which lists books recommended at the conference panels I attended; mystery-and-private-eye, a genre I love, so these are books I’ve already read and reviewed; and books discussing Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Most of the Buffy books are on my actual shelves, too. I created the virtual shelf to make it easier for other Buffy fans to find them.

Detailed Info On Likes And Dislikes

I find Goodreads reviewers tend to be more specific than readers on other sites about what works and doesn’t for them. Once toward the beginning of Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (the sort of sequel to The Shining), I felt less interested than I’d expected. I didn’t like the main character much, and I wasn’t sure I’d finish given the many hours I was working at the time. But enough people on Goodreads said they’d felt the same at the start but ended liking the book that I continued. It still isn’t my favorite Stephen King novel–that’s The Dead Zone–but it was worth finishing Doctor Sleep. I’ve also occasionally bought a book based on a negative Goodreads review because I figured I’d like exactly what the reviewer did not about the novel.

Free Autographed Books

Periodically, publishers and authors offer giveaways of books on Goodreads, often autographed ones. (If you list a book on your To Read shelf, sometimes Goodreads will email to let you know a giveaway is happening.) Right now, as part of preparing to publish Book 3 in my Awakening series, I’m offering 10 autographed trade paperback editions of The Unbelievers (The Awakening, Book 2) to readers in the U.S.

For a chance to win, sign up here by February 13, 2016.

Enter today, as the giveaway is only open until February 13, 2016. Watch this space for announcements regarding Book 3 of 4 in The Awakening series, The Conflagration, and/or connect with me on Goodreads. Happy reading!

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My current favorite writing space/office.

That experience is one reason I had mixed feelings when, about a month ago, I considered updating my profession on Linked In and other social media sites to include the word “entrepreneur.” For so long, for me that word called up images either of the boyfriend who preferred not to work or the salesperson hawking pricey no-fail systems for becoming a millionaire. The people I knew who did well in life worked hard at jobs or professions and saved and invested little by little. As I entered my thirties, my view of entrepreneurs didn’t change. A good friend married a man who ran various businesses and was always evading bill collectors and always on the verge of the one big deal that would make him rich. Though eventually it meant losing their house, this entrepreneur refused to take any job unless it paid well over a hundred thousand a year. No such job was ever offered to him. I also discovered that if someone described himself in an online dating profile as an entrepreneur, it quite often meant he was a guy who couldn’t or wouldn’t hold a job–one my mother would have called a “ne’er-do-well.” Such men were often charming, but could rarely pay their bills.

I’m sure decades ago there were many actual entrepreneurs–as opposed to people who adopted the label as a cover–I simply didn’t do the kind of work that brought me into contact with them. Now I do. As an author who independently publishes my own work and an attorney who runs my own law firm, I keep up with the business world and am on email lists of various entrepreneurs. Today, running a business is probably more common than ever. The Internet empowers many people to work anywhere at any time and to sell products and services all over the world. Yet still there are times I wonder. Some Internet businesses remind me of the house parties my mom went to when I was a kid. Everyone “made money” or got free items attending everyone else’s Tupperware/Pampered Chef/Mary Kay parties. But eventually the circle of friends was exhausted, the round robin ended, and no one was any wealthier, though their kitchens were more organized. (Not an entirely bad thing, but not a basis for a business.)

Also, while some author/entrepreneurs I’m familiar with offer a lot of helpful information for free on blogs or in reasonably priced books (say, $3.99-$9.99, not $700), I also get offers from “entrepreneurs” who seem to be making a lot of money selling books about how to sell books or, worse, by giving expensive seminars on how to sell books. When I try to trace back to some other type of book, product, or service the author successfully created and sold, I find only vague references to business experiences that sound suspiciously like college internships. Not to say a college intern might not know something I don’t. I’m just not willing to pay upwards of $500 to find out.

On the other hand, I’ve been enjoying running my own businesses for years, and I hope never to have a job again. Soon after I started my law firm, heavy layoffs during a recession underscored the risk of working for just one employer. And I love that the Internet makes it possible for many authors to sell to the public, offering their work for less than a traditional publisher would charge, but earning more than a traditional publisher would pay while doing so. Also important to me is that running my own writing business means choosing the strategy and making the decisions. Or, as entrepreneur and author Joanna Penn puts it, never having to ask permission. If I think something is a good idea–say, writing and publishing a religious conspiracy thriller series without adopting a male pen name–I can go ahead and do it without seeking anyone’s approval. Yes, I take the risk it won’t work, but if that happens, I learn from the experience and try something else rather than, as usually occurs as an employee, being discouraged from innovating again. And if things do work out, I gain the reward.

Most of all, it’s fun to wear different hats throughout a day, week, and year. Nearly every job I’ve had, my main reason for leaving was that I got tired of doing the same thing over and over. Now there is always a new book to write, an innovative marketing approach to learn, an emerging creative outlet to explore. So, in the end, I decided to embrace the term entrepreneur.

What are your thoughts on entrepreneurs? What do you associate with the term? Do you consider yourself an entrepreneur? Please share in the comments below. Also, if you’d like to keep up on my creative and business endeavors, you can join my email list. No pitches to buy $700 books, I promise.

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Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the occult thrillers The Awakening and The Unbelievers, Books 1 and 2 in the Awakening series. A short film of the title story of her collection The Tower Formerly Known as Sears and Two Other Tales of Urban Horror was recently produced under the title Willis Tower. If you’d like to be notified of new releases and read reviews of M.O.S.T. (Mystery, Occult, Suspense, Thriller) books and movies, join her email list and receive free a short horror story, Ninevah, published exclusively to M.O.S.T. subscribers.

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The Awakening (Book 1) and The Unbelievers (Book 2).

Second, the role of women in myth and religion fascinates me. I grew up learning about Christianity from the Catholic perspective, and the Catholic religion is filled with contradictions in its view of Mary, believed to be the mother of Jesus. I had friends in other Christian churches who told me Catholicism was wrong or evil because Catholics “worship” Mary. Apparently aware of that critique, the priests at the church my family attended were careful to emphasize that Mary is not a deity in her own right. On the other hand, though it appears nowhere in the Church’s written gospels, Catholics believe that Mary in and of herself is unique among humans. For one, she is believed to be the only human being conceived without Original Sin, which is the actual meaning of the term Immaculate Conception. And for another, she supposedly never died. Instead, her body was “assumed” into heaven. A pretty amazing feat for someone who is not divine. Many Catholics also believe she has special powers to intercede with Jesus/God and see that prayers are answered.

For all the interest in Mary in the Catholic Church, the Bible coverage of her is limited. If she were real, what was her life like? In her time, far more than now, being unmarried and pregnant did not bode well for a young woman. Yet the Bible says nothing about what she told her parents, relatives, or friends about her situation. The only mention is that Joseph initially intended to reject her, but changed his mind after an angel visited him.

Perhaps because I ultimately found I didn’t believe most of the stories I grew up with, I’m intrigued by the reasoning of those who continue to do so, which is the majority of people in the Chicago area where I live. What I found myself asking is how literal people’s beliefs are. Are they convinced that a little over two thousand years ago a woman named Mary actually one day found herself pregnant despite never having had sex? And, if so, how would they react to a young woman who made that same claim today? It’s one thing to believe that in Biblical times Moses parted the Red Sea or Jesus was born of a virgin, but it’s another to believe anyone who claims to perform miracles today.

Along with that “What if” came my other issue with the major monotheistic religions—that God is represented as male. So when I began putting together my plot idea for The Awakening series, I considered not only what opposition and disbelief a pregnant virgin today would face, but how that might change once she revealed her child would be a girl.

I also wanted to explore many potential causes for such an event, as not all the world is Christian. In fact, my protagonist, Tara Spencer, is not herself religious, though her parents are, which adds to her confusion and makes the issue more complex. The event that starts the story could have been caused by some sort of god, an adversary to god (such as Satan as he is traditionally depicted in our culture), a different supernatural being or force altogether, a scheming scientist, evolution…the possibilities are endless. All these causes remain on the table for most of the series, so the answer to the other question often asked of me, which is whether the series is a Christian one, is no.

I chose to go beyond one thriller and into a four-book series in part due to my original thought that the Biblical character of Mary gets short shrift. In the end, her value is mainly as a Mother with a capital M. (Though Catholicism borrowed a lot of goddess lore in its depiction of her, attempting to draw in believers in goddess culture with some success, thus its contradictory stance on Mary.) Likewise, in stories that flip the narrative and portray a supernatural pregnancy that is a danger to the woman or perhaps to the world, such as Rosemary’s Baby (one of my favorite books), the woman’s role also is primarily as a mother/victim/woman in peril. In contrast, I wanted to explore Tara Spencer, my protagonist, as a protagonist. As a person who is a force in the world who has her own goals, powers, and challenges. Her own friends and enemies. In short, her own life. The Awakening series is primarily about Tara as a person, not as a pregnant woman.

All of the above sometimes leaves me at a loss at cocktail parties or in interviews when I’m asked how I categorize The Awakening series. Books 1 and 2 have spent significant time in Amazon’s Top 100 Occult and Horror best seller lists, though I admit the series has as much in common with The Da Vinci Code as Rosemary’s Baby, as one reviewer pointed out. Religious conspiracy series also seems to fit, though it bothers me because it puts the emphasis on the religious order opposing Tara, the Brotherhood of Andrew, rather than on Tara herself. But the people whose eyes light up when I describe the concept often also love books described as religious conspiracy thrillers, including those of Dan Brown and Joanna Penn. I’ve used the term paranormal thriller, but “paranormal” for the last decade or two seems to call up visions of the Twilight series or paranormal romances. Science fiction/fantasy fans often also like the series, though I don’t usually read the genre. (One exception is that I love Dan Simmons’ Hyperion series which, perhaps not coincidentally, includes a female messiah-type character.) Recently Amazon added a category “Supernatural Thriller,” and that may be the best fit of The Awakening, The Unbelievers, and the last two books in the series.

The reality is, of course, most of us read in more than one genre. I love horror, suspense, mystery, occult, thrillers, and supernatural books. Further, all of us also tend to sub-specialize in our genre reading. I like horror but not gore. I like mysteries and particularly detective stories but not cozies. Other people love suspense but won’t read anything with any hint of the supernatural. In the end, I suppose that’s why I love reading and writing fiction so much. There are so many great stories, and so many ways to tell them.

If you’d like to read more about M.O.S.T. (Mystery, Occult, Suspense, Thriller) books and movies and receive news of my new releases, click here to join my email list. (If you join today, you’ll receive free a short horror story, Ninevah, published exclusively to M.O.S.T. subscribers.)

The post Why Write a Thriller Series About A Potential Female Messiah? appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

Get Out:  Getting outside once a day, no matter what the weather, boosts my mental health. Much as writing all day at an antique desk in my home office sounds appealing when it’s ten degrees with a six below windchill (can you tell I live in Chicago?), if I stay inside too much, I start feeling blue. I’m also less creative and less motivated. So if I’m working from home more than a day or two in a row, I make sure I meet someone for lunch, lug my laptop to the local coffeehouse, or at least walk a few blocks to the Container Store to admire the many wondrous things there. Despite the time it takes to layer on a fleece, winter coat, scarf, and double gloves (when it’s zero or colder), I feel energized and ready to get back to work when I get home.

Flexibility:  For years (actually, decades), I wrote, submitted manuscripts, and ascended the rejection ladder, graduating from form letters to personal notes to publication of some short stories, poems, and articles. I took a few breaks when my law practice became extremely busy and after my parents’ deaths. When I came back and needed to decide what to do with my most recently-completed novel, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about authors having success with self-publishing. I hesitated because in my mind that wasn’t “real” publishing. But the more I researched, the more excited I became. I believe in my work, and rather than spending so much energy and time persuading others to invest in it, I decided to bet on myself. Now my marketing time goes toward reaching readers directly. Likewise, I discovered I need to be flexible about genre. I think of my Awakening series as a thriller series despite occult elements, as it contains relatively little of the type of gore that’s common these days in horror. (Though I disagree that gore is required.) Yet the books sell well when listed in Amazon’s horror category. When my first fan email came in, it was from readers who love science fiction, a genre in which I hadn’t imagined the books directly fit. That’s when I realized that, by not reaching sci fi and other genre readers, I was missing entire audience sections.

Amazon helps those who help themselves: The more I do to advertise and promote my books, the more Amazon does to promote them and the more sales rise. This is a great relief. When I started running ads for The Awakening, I rarely recovered the price of the ad. Now ads in smaller publications nearly always pay for themselves, and an ad in a publication with a large subscription base such as BookBub usually earns me much more than it costs within the first day, plus prompts a string of sales for weeks to come. Having a second book in the series adds to this effect. While I’m sure longevity and past sales must be factored into Amazon’s algorithms, this also reflects a larger truth in any business. At first, a huge amount of time and effort is spent getting the word out. But if you have a good product, eventually others start selling it for you. Not as a favor but because, if they are customers, they truly love the product and want to share it with others and, if they are vendors, because you are showing you can help make them money.

Consistency matters: There is a great quote that I don’t remember word-for-word in Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. It goes something like “you are what your habits make you, and you can choose your habits.” I thought of this as I began devoting more time and effort to writing and publishing. How does it relate? For the majority of authors, writing one book and publishing it on Amazon results in little more than a handful of sales to family and friends. Likewise, writing a blog post or two, occasionally tweeting, and creating a webpage won’t sustain a career or a business. It’s the effort that’s made week after week, month after month, and year after year that has the most effect. Writing in particular is something a lot of people love doing, as is playing sports. That means for authors and athletes (and singers and actors and visual artists), there is a lot of competition. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth pursuing. It does mean a successful career will likely require effort day after day for years. This is something I keep in mind every time I read an “overnight” success story. Usually further research reveals that the novel the person wrote and sold a hundred thousand copies of was the fifth one that person finished, and the stunning sales record came not because of one ad but after months or years of seeking reviews from book bloggers, attending and speaking at conferences, and finding creative ways to reach readers.

No one owes it to me to be excited about what I’m doing: There are certain things that almost everyone in our culture universally expresses excitement about when women do them–mainly getting married and having children. Beyond that, it varies. For example, some people feel earning an advanced degree is a great accomplishment, others scoff at “professional students.” When it comes to writing and particularly an author independently publishing her own work, there will always be people eager to downplay any success, or who view all artistic efforts as too much of a long shot to be worth noting. At first those attitudes surprised and disappointed me. Then I realized that everyone is entitled to her or his own opinion, and I don’t need to share it, be concerned about it, or factor it into how I live my life. What’s important is doing my best at what I love doing.

Many talented people are generous with their time and information: This is the flip side of the point above. For every person who is dismissive of self-publishing, there are three or four who freely offer information, advice, and support. I’ve learned tremendous amounts about writing, business, and marketing from blogs and websites created by authors like Nick Stephenson, Joanna Penn, Bob Mayer, and Melissa Foster. I’ve also joined on-line communities where authors share what they’ve learned about writing, editing, and marketing. I had this same experience when I started my own law practice after many years of working at a large firm. It reaffirms my faith in human nature and in the value of being kind, professional, and considerate. It is almost always returned tenfold.

Questions or comments on these points or a few to add of your own? Please comment below or email me at lisa@lisalilly.com.
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Lisa M. Lilly is the author of occult thrillers The Awakening and The Unbelievers. Her poems and short fiction have appeared in numerous print and on-line magazines, including Parade of Phantoms, Strong Coffee, and Hair Trigger, and a short film of the title story of her collection The Tower Formerly Known as Sears and Two Other Tales of Urban Horror was recently produced under the title Willis Tower. If you’d like to be notified of new releases, click here to join her email list. The Awakening series is also available on barnesandnoble.com.

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The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

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***

Pete lay on thin carpet over what felt like a metal floor that swayed beneath him. His shoulders ached. When he opened his eyes, he saw only black. No light seeped in around the edges of the blindfold. His hands were bound behind him.

Bouncing, rattling. A van. I’m in the back of a panel van. He tried to move his feet, but they, too, were tied together. At least he wasn’t gagged.

“Cyril?”

No answer.

Pete kicked his feet in unison. They hit what felt like metal. A clanging sound echoed around him. He rolled along the carpeted floor until he banged into what must be a side of the van. It seemed too long to be the back. His body fit lengthwise against it. His head felt fuzzy. He had no idea how long he’d been out.

The van jounced, and his right knee smacked the floor at the perfect angle to send shooting pain along his inner thigh. His shoulders and upper arms ached from having his hands behind his back. Otherwise, though, his body didn’t seem battered. Pete worked his wrists and felt the rope stretch. Whoever had bound him hadn’t done so tightly. He considered whether Cyril had lured him to the church and set the trap. But much as he wanted to blame Cyril, he couldn’t see what the man stood to gain. 

But if Cyril’s not part of this, where is he? And what could anyone else want with me?

Pete froze, forgetting the ropes for a moment. Tara. They want to get to Tara.

***

A door slammed. From inside the panel van, heart hammering, Pete listened to footsteps crunch in snow. He simultaneously regretted that he’d stayed so distant from Tara since Fimi’s birth and cursed her for not keeping quiet about her unusual pregnancy. Telling anyone beyond the family placed them all in danger. 

“My name is Kerri Geiser, Mr. Spencer. I will open the doors in a moment. I apologize for the method of transport. It is important that you not know where you have been taken if you decide not to help us.” 

A woman’s voice, but not the priest’s wife. The accent sounded Russian, with rolled R’s, stressed syllables, and the W’s pronounced like V’s.

Help you do what? Pete thought, struggling with the ropes around his wrists. Was it a bad sign that Kerri Geiser had given him her name? If it was her real name. For the first time, he wished he’d taken boxing or martial arts like his father had wanted him to do. He might know something more about fighting, as Cyril no doubt did. He’d been in pretty good shape before Megan’s death; he’d found a way to work out every other day, at least by swimming half an hour at the Y. But since then he’d let it slide, and he’d become softer and weaker. He’d let a lot of things slide.

He heard creaking as the doors opened, and a blast of icy air hit him. His down jacket had come most of the way unzipped, and he was sweating from his struggles, so he felt chilled and clammy. No light seeped in around the edges of the blindfold, so it must be after sunset.

“Slide forward until you sit at the back bumper of the van,” Geiser said.

He inched his body through the dark toward the cold air, his shoulder joints protesting the unnatural position they’d been forced into. Based on her voice, Pete guessed the woman’s age as mid-thirties. But he was probably wrong. He’d met many clients in person after speaking to them on the phone whose voices matched their looks not at all.

“Why am I here?” He maneuvered into a sitting position, a challenge with his hands behind his back, and put his feet on the ground.

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