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Excerpt –
Kirsten was not sure what to feel more foolish
about: resorting to cyberspace dating, or spending six thousand credits on a
shimmering emerald gown that left her shoulders and most of her back bare, and
stopped just short of the middle of her thigh. When he turned away, she slipped
a hand under it and cradled her chest.
Damn,
two days and my boob still hurts. I hate wraiths.
She fidgeted at the hem the whole time she sat;
it was longer on the left, with some purposeless strip of cloth trailing to the
floor. A few strands of hair that escaped the clip tickled at the nape of her
neck, every so often making her grab for a nonexistent insect. Awkwardness
pervaded her being; she could not remember the last time she had worn a dress, much
less one so short. Most of her effort went toward keeping tabs of how she
positioned herself. Lean too far forward, the room got a show; too far back and
she remembered how cold the chair was.
Armando seemed nice enough, but she had yet to
come clean with him. Every time she thought about it, the silver finish of her
high-heeled shoes became quite fascinating. She smiled and nodded at his
attempts at conversation. At least he was not the type to drone on and on about
his success, or money, or other such trite things. He did mention he worked in
technology, some manner of investor or engineer; she had not been paying enough
attention when it came up. He had gone over it out front while they waited for
a table and she focused too much on feeling stared at.
“… and that’s when I told him we’d have to
start over from scratch. The system infrastructure was too… are you all right?
Is your foot bothering you?”
Her face grew warm, red. “I’m okay, I’m
second-guessing this gown… It’s a bit, um…”
“It’s radiant, matches the woman wearing it.
The green sets off your hair.”
More warmth came to her cheeks. “It’s a bit
open, not my usual sort of thing…”
You’ll
have to show a living man the goods sooner or later.
Theodore’s voice mocked her from memory.
“It is fine, Kirsten. You should see some of
the trash in Paris these days. They might as well not even bother. Sometimes
you wonder how it even stays on.” He sipped his wine, leaning back. “Of course,
it’s cyclical. In two years, there won’t be a scrap of skin showing; floppy
bags on their heads or some such nonsense.”
She laughed, though could not hide her nerves.
A waiter arrived, setting a small bowl of shrimp cocktail in front of each of
them, flecked with scallions and shaved cucumber. Kirsten fumbled to get a grip
on her fork, again fascinated by the reflection on her shoes.
“You’ve the look of a guilty conscience. Don’t
tell me you’re having doubts this early on?” His concern seemed genuine. “Was
this an unfortunate choice of location?”
“It’s…” She sighed, losing a staring contest
with her shoes.
“Are you sick? Dying?”
“No… it’s―”
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You prefer
women?”
She giggled, looking up. “No.” Taking a bite of
shrimp delayed her having to keep talking.
“Dangerous ex?” He followed suit, lifting an
eyebrow. “Rather good food here. I hear they ship it in from a colony.”
“Pointlessly expensive.” She poked at the next
shrimp. “It tastes the same as vat-grown.”
He chuckled. “It tastes a lot better if you
have it fresh, loses something in shipping. Have you ever been to a colony
settlement? It’s adventurous.”
“No.” Fascinating shoes. “I get enough
adventure down here.”
“So what’s got you all mopey?”
She looked into his hazel eyes. “You don’t give
me the feeling you’re just trying to get in my pants for a night.”
He coughed, gathering a napkin over his
reddening face.
“No… I’m not saying…” She blushed. “That’s what
I want. I’m looking for more than a one-nighter.” She lowered her volume when a
few people nearby turned. “I want something real, but…”
Armando swallowed, taking a few sips of water
to clear his throat. “What’s wrong? Can’t have kids? Leaving the country soon?”
“Is your name really Armando?”
He laughed. “Is that all? It actually is… I
changed it a few years ago. I was born Brian, if you want to know. Not very
sexy.”
“You’re kind of pale for an Armando; Brian is
cute.”
He smirked, finding her assay of him as “cute”
a bit deflating.
“I like you, Brian, Armando, whatever. I’ve had
a damnable time finding a guy I can trust.” She stared deep into the woven tablecloth,
as if some secret to love hid among the threads. “I have to tell you
something.”
He tensed. “All right.”
“I have a son.”
The cringe was nigh imperceptible.
“I didn’t have him as a baby. I took him in, a
special situation.”
Brian/Armando relaxed. “Oh, well, perhaps I
should meet him soon. That isn’t such a big issue.”
“There’s more.” She picked at the shrimp. “I
never did tell you about my job.”
He squinted. “Something less than legal?”
Her laugh startled half the room. When the din
returned to normal, and her cheeks to normal color, she gazed at him as her
last threads of whimsy mixed with sadness. “I’m with the police.”
“Oh.” He bit his lip, shifting in the chair.
Two
strikes. Kid, cop. Great. Dammit.
“Well, I suppose… You don’t really seem to be
the type of woman involved in that sort of thing.”
So
help me, if he says delicate flower… “I’m not a beat cop, I’m
with investigations.”
“Oh, well that’s better, I think? You don’t get
shot at so much?” He took a sip of wine. “I’m not sure I would be able to cope
with wondering if you came home each
night.”
She lifted her glass to her lip, enough to
smell the wine, but hesitated. No, I just
get blown off the eleventh story of parking garages. “Not so often. I
usually deal with people after they’re dead.” Damn it, K, just spit it out.
Last shrimp gone, he had another sip of wine,
and smiled while dabbing at his lip with the napkin. “So you’re a homicide
detective? You must have some stories.”
Kirsten stared at her appetizer shrimp
cocktail, compliments of the house. She took in a deep breath. Better now than after I get attached.
“I’m with Division 0.”
The expected cough, the same chest patting, the
usual lifted brow. “There’s a zero?”
“Yeah, it’s small, there’s not many of us. I’m
ps―” A well, or ill, as the case may be, timed shrimp muffled the last bit.
“Pardon?”
She chewed it like gum. The longer it took to
swallow, the longer she could entertain the fantasy this one would be
different. He wouldn’t be the same as all others. Adventurous. “I’m psionic.”
“I see.” Color drained out of his face.
The lip bite, the shift in posture, interest
became trepidation.
Figures.
What would his family think if he brought a psionic girl home?
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Date
of Publication:
September 8, 2014
Description:
Some soldiers don’t let anything
sway them from their mission, not even death from high explosives.
Free from her troubled past,
Agent Kirsten Wren finds happiness mentoring Evan, a boy with similar talents
with whom she soon forms a strong bond. Her efforts to help Dorian settle his
past become complicated when a team of corporate “issue resolution consultants”
continue their mission to kill a man in the afterlife.
Kirsten gets involved when their
postmortem grudge match spills into the realm of the living. At the scene of a
surgical explosion that gutted only one floor of a residential tower, she
discovers a strange arcane circle drawn in silver. There, she senses energy
darker than any wraith she has yet encountered; a force that questions
everything she believes about the world.
Vikram Medhi, the hacker targeted
by Lyris Corporation for elimination, begs her to protect him from undead out
to destroy him. With no way to track these spirits, she seeks help from an
enigmatic billionaire who offers her more than a simple translation of ancient
Sumerian pictographs.
Chasing down a dangerous psionic
criminal in the oldest lawless zone in the city, trying to protect a man on a
corporate death list, and trying to keep both of them from hurting the one
person in the world she loves, Kirsten must reach deep within herself to accept
her destiny.
Find
Online:
About
Matthew Cox:
Born in a little town known
as South Amboy NJ in 1973, Matthew has been creating science fiction and
fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Somewhere between fifteen to
eighteen of them spent developing the world in which Division Zero, Virtual
Immortality, and The Awakened Series take place. He has several other projects
in the works as well as a collaborative science fiction endeavor with author
Tony Healey.
Hobbies and Interests: Matthew
is an avid gamer, a recovered WoW addict, Gamemaster for two custom systems
(Chronicles of Eldrinaath [Fantasy] and Divergent Fates [Sci Fi], and a fan of
anime, British humour (<- deliberate), and intellectual science fiction that
questions the nature of reality, life, and what happens after it. He is also
fond of cats.
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