My All-Nighter Paid Off – Carson's Night Is Official. A new paranormal romance for Teal Ceagh.

Remember the all-nighter I pulled to meet the killer deadline a while ago?  Well, I sold the novella, and it’s now official.  And I guessed right:  The original story title I submitted the book under got canned before it got off the ground (you try coming up with even semi-okay story titles at three in the morning!).  My second title got the thumbs-up, though.

Carson’s Night has yet to receive any official paperwork, so a release date is a ways-off, too.  But for now, it’s on the to-be-scheduled pile, and Ellora’s Cave have a way of sliding stories out the door fairly quickly once the paperwork is processed, so we’ll see how quickly it gets out there.  I’m also working on a sequel to the story right now, as this is a one-two-punch storyline.  The second half of this story is called Beauty and the Beasts, and I’m already close to half-way through it.  I’m trying to finish it quickly so I can turn it in as close as possible behind Carson’s Night.

Here’s the blurb for Carson’s Night, and an excerpt, and I’ve already built a basic page for the book, too: here.

_____

It’s August 1977 in New York city and the stunning new Star Wars movie is smashing all box office records.

The weird sculptor Moss Alex Meinhardt lies dead at the foot of an ugly gargoyle he’s half-completed. Natalia Grey’s demon hunter father is also dead, and his new partner, the astonishingly sexy Carson Connors, can’t remember how it happened.

Natalia must take up her father’s sword and her heritage as a demon hunter, and figure out what happened this night, for the gargoyles Meinhardt carve have life they should not without the help of dark forces she and Carson must defeat — once the gargoyles have risen, of course.  But the night is hours away yet….

________

Chapter One

August 1977, New York City

Tally moved from sleeping to waking in one breath.  With the next, she eased her hand under her pillow and gripped the handle of her knife as she pretended to sigh and roll onto her side in her sleep.

Iron fingers clamped onto her wrist.  “It’s me, Tally.  Nick.”

She opened her eyes.  The dark shape in the room looked like him.  “Turn on the light,” she said.

He reached for the light without hesitation, proving he knew his way around her bedroom. She stared at the person who eased himself down onto the chair beside her bed.  He looked haggard and ill-used and that frightened her enough to sit up in her bed despite wearing only her Pink Floyd tee-shirt and panties.  She brought the knife with her.  It was an automatic move, a trained move, triggered by the alarmed created by Nick’s appearance.

Nicholas Sherwood should not look tired.  He was a vampire, and did not need sleep or rest. Yet he blinked at her now like a man who had seen too much of the night.

She glanced at her bedside clock.  The hands hovered over the two and the three.  It would be dawn soon.  “Nick?” she coaxed, her heart hammering.

“I need you to get dressed and come with me, Natalia,” he said softly. He reached down beside him and picked up something.  He raised it and placed it vertically between his knees and rested both hands around the long hilt.

It was her father’s Japanese sword.  His katana.

Nicholas looked at her over the top of hilt.  “I’m sorry, Tally.  Your father died tonight.  You must take his place now.”

* * * * *

Tally was too numb to cry, which was just as well, for the cab driver was normal human and they had to guard their tongues.  Nick paid off the driver.  In the pre-dawn hush the vampire looked up at the flat face of the old dockside warehouse, his expression grim.  “Ready?” he asked, settling the light coat around his shoulders better.  He was very tall, about six foot two, and the sword made the coat hang awkwardly.

She shook her head.

He gripped her shoulder.  “Neither am I,” he confessed.  “But we must do this now.”  He led her with gentle firmness over to a dark doorway.  It stood open, a black maw she was wildly reluctant to step through.  Inside was misery and death.

“Where was my father’s partner?  The new one?” she asked.  “Why wasn’t he watching out for him?  Why didn’t he stop this?”

“Inside,” Nick told her in a murmur.

“Why were you here, anyway, Nick?  You don’t usually work with my father.”

“Just wait until we get inside, Tally.”

“Why?  What’s in there?”  She tried to turn to look at him, but Nick’s grip on her arm was too firm.  He was a vampire, after all.  He could rip her apart like humans can shred paper, she knew that. Still she tried to resist.

But he didn’t use his strength against her.  He let her halt and face him.

“What’s inside, Nick?” she asked.

“It’s easier if you just go in and see for yourself.”  He tried to smile.  “It’s nothing dangerous, for now.  I won’t let anything hurt you.”

She felt tears sting her eyes.  “Too late, Nick.”

He made a helpless gesture.  “I wasn’t here when it happened.  I don’t know how he died.  I need you to help me figure it out.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re your father’s daughter, and I trained you.  I know what you can do.”

She sniffed, trying hard to halt the tears rolling down her cheeks.  “What does that mean?”

Nick swore softly, then reached over and wiped her cheeks.  “Damn, I wish you wouldn’t do that.  It’s a completely unfair tactic, especially when you look the way you do, with those big green eyes of yours.”

“I thought I was just a lousy human female,” she reminded him.

“You’re a pathetic human female,” he corrected her.  “But that doesn’t mean I’m completely invulnerable to your charms.  And I know exactly what you are, Natalie Grey.  You are one of the most powerful demon hunters of this age.  You just haven’t realized it yet.  I want you to see what is inside that warehouse.  I think you just might be able to help me.”

“But you’re not going to tell me anything that will bias my thinking, right?”

This time his smile was unforced.  “Right.”

She found she was able to approach the warehouse with less reluctance and step inside without hesitation.

It was dark inside except for the glow of a pressure lantern at the far end. Nick slid the sword out from under his coat and handed it to her.  It felt too long and heavy but she hefted it and let the blade settle on her shoulder, which was a good ready position as she had no scabbard for it. She headed in the direction of the glow of the lantern, the flares of her jeans swishing softly in the silent cavern of the warehouse.  It was empty and chilly.

“Tally,” came a soft murmur as she drew closer.  “You grow more beautiful with each passing day.”

Damian.  Nicholas’s lover.  She felt the vampire’s hand on her shoulder.  His lips on her temple.  She looked up into Damian’s black eyes, illuminated in the soft glow of the lantern.  His high cheekbones and olive skin and strong jaw line were unchanging, but they were touched with sadness now.  His long fingers stroked her cheek.

“We’ll mourn him, Tally.”

She could feel more tears building.  Vampires mourning the death of a human was a rare acknowledgment.

“Not until I find the one who did this,” she ground out, struggling to keep her voice even.  “Where is he?”

Damian nodded.  “I’ll turn the light up.  Brace yourself, Tally.”  He walked over to the lamp, bent over and turned up the gas feed on it.  The light spread and brightened, and more of the warehouse appeared.

And she saw her father’s body.  Tally moved over to where Peter James Gray lay in a contorted, undignified and bloodied huddled, his guts ripped out, his fingers curled in pain. Tally swallowed back her revulsion and studied the remains as clinically as she could, aware in a distant way that she was shaking violently.  She used the sword to prop herself up.

“G…gargoyle,” she pronounced, wiping at her eyes.

“Yes,” Nick agreed coolly, next to her.  “And your father was hunting one tonight.”

“How do you know that?”

“His partner told us.”

“Where is the toad?  I want to talk to him.”

“In a minute.  There’s something else you should see.”  Nick nodded at Damian, who picked up the lantern.  Both of them stepped to either side of her, and warmth and regard flooded her.  Despite the subterranean keening sounding inside her at the loss of her father, she knew that she would never truly be alone while Nick and Damian trod the earth.

They led her through the darkness, past huge wooden packing crates, into another cavernous, seemingly empty room with a concrete floor. This one was just as cool as the last.  They stopped at a huge block of raw stone, something that looked like it had been blasted out of the side of a mountain and dumped on the floor, after having the bottom of it shaved smooth and flat.

At the foot of the rock lay another body.  Tally crouched down next to the man.  This time the cause of death was a bit harder to establish, and when she found it, she grew uneasy.  She stood up.  “My father must have killed him.  With this.”  She dropped the sword so the point rested on the concrete.  “But why?  Who is he?”

“You don’t recognize him at all?” Nick asked.

“You don’t know him?” Tally asked.  “He looks vaguely familiar to me, but…”  She frowned.  “Is there an office around here somewhere?  Something with paperwork in it?  Does he have a wallet on him?  A driver’s license?”  She squatted again, and patted the man’s pockets, and found a wallet in his hip pocket.  “Can one of you roll him so I can get the wallet out?”

Damian lifted the body for her and that was when they found the top of the pentacle painted on the floor beneath it.

__________

Tweet This Post Facebook Stumble This Post

Related Posts

• Who's Sexier? Werewolves or Vampires? Tielle St. Clare Picks Up the Challenge Today we have with us Tielle St. Clare, Ellora's Cave author, who is marking the release of her new novel, Jackson's Rise.  Not at all coincidentally, the book is about shapeshifters, which originally made me prick up my ears.  After my rant about werewolves not being sexy, I thought it......
• The Unglamorous Life of Demon Hunters [ This is the first of my "book tour" posts for the launch of Beauty's Beasts.  It's a bit weird hosting my own blog tour, I know, but pretend I'm my own special guest, sit back, and try to enjoy my waffling on.  This is what I do on other......
• The New Kick-Ass Romantic Suspense Heroine Romantic Suspense is changing.  If you spread its borders to include the paranormal (paranormal romantic suspense) and the erotic (erotic romantic suspense), and include military heroes (well d'uh) as one of the mainstays of the genre, but marry those heroes up against kick-ass military heroines, black ops specialists and more,......
• BLUE KNIGHT Is Finished And I'm Tempting Fate Again [/caption] My erotic romantic suspense, Blue Knight, is finally finished and has been submitted to Ellora's Cave.  This is the third book in the Guns 'n Lovers series, of which Red Leopard and Black Heart were the first two. I'm tempting fate again.  I've already built a book page for......
• Winner of Draw for "THE UNGLAMOROUS LIFE OF DEMON HUNTERS" Post -- And Another Excerpt As part of the launch of Beauty's Beasts, I hosted my own guest post the other day, you may recall.  Now you have proof I'm totally losing it.  ;) But you stand to benefit, anyway:  All the goodies stay right here, too. The winner of the draw, for a copy......

Related Websites

• Vampires Can Screw With History...So What Is Stopping Them? by Tracy Cooper-Posey, guest blogger and author of Kiss Across Time. I’m writing this post as we travel across South Dakota, North Dakota and into Saskatchewan, on my way home from the Romantic Times Booklovers’ Convention 2010. We’ve just crossed into North Dakota, and are battling the mother of......
• Sink Your Fangs into New Book Series Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter by Laurell K. Hamilton For a long while I was a fan of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. Anita Blake was a kick-ass heroine who's policy was shoot first, apologize later if wrong. Her story started out overcoming her hatred of all things......
• The Blood Sweat and Gritty-Eyed Truth Behind Carson’s Night by Tracy Cooper-Posey (a.k.a Teal Ceagh), guest blogger I’ve made no secret of the fact that Carson’s Night was finished in a monster weekend marathon writing session. What isn’t known, until now, is that I wrote the whole story in that one weekend stint. That’s because I was very......
• Happy Father's Day Happy Father's Day to all the dad's and future dad's out there! I hope you enjoyed your special day! I wanted to take a minute to honor 2 men in my life. The first being my dad, the most wonderful man a girl could ask for. And my husband,......
• How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke [/caption] by PABLO S. TORRE SI Recession or no recession, many NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball players have a penchant for losing most or all of their money. It doesn't matter how much they make. And the ways they blow it are strikingly similar What the hell happened here?......