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Excerpt—Vasquez and James in Seattle

January 2, 2012

The famous and unique Rachel the Pig returns to Pike Street Market after being treated for injuries sustained ina pig vs car accident

LUKI had miraculously woken up only fifteen minutes after Sonny. It would be a busy day, he thought, so as soon as he had crept out on the balcony for a cigarette and had a second cup of coffee in his hand, he joined his lover… his partner… his fiancé, for God’s sake, for morning ablutions. The hotel had a big bathroom, surprisingly practical rather than luxurious, and while Luki stood at the sink brushing his very white, very perfect teeth, Sonny sat on the edge of the tub clipping his toenails. It made Luki smile inside; it meant Sonny planned on sex, which hadn’t seemed appropriate the previous night. And about which Luki had doubts with the stitches in his thigh still feeling like they were going to rip out every time he turned his leg or put weight on it.

“Don’t worry,” Sonny said, “I’ll do all the work.”

He reads my mind. Not fair. Still, watching Sonny out of the corner of his eye, the sleek stretches of hard muscle and long hair falling over his shoulders, his own sex responded with a quick leap.

“Not now, though.”

Luki rolled his eyes, sure Sonny couldn’t see him.

“Don’t roll your eyes, Luki—”

What, he heard me roll my eyes?

“We have to leave, and you know it.”

“I guess we should go see Kaholo and….” Luki choked his next words back and very deliberately started heating his razor under hot water. He’d been just about to say “and the ’phews,” which was how he and Sonny had jokingly referred to the boys when there were still three and Delsyn had been one of them. He started again, “I guess we should go see Kaholo and Jackie and Josh. Once again, he felt he was missing some piece of the puzzle about what was going on. Something he should have his finger on, but didn’t. Still, ever since Ladd suggested Nebraska as a destination, it seemed more and more like a good idea. He missed Kaholo, and he missed the boys too—and he hadn’t really had a chance yet to get to know them.

“Yeah,” Sonny said, looking vaguely surprised. “I already made our travel arrangements.”

“You didn’t even know I was considering the idea! You got the plane tickets?”

“No, not plane tickets. I knew about the idea because Ladd suggested it—he told me. And it seemed like a good plan. Though I have to say, again, there’s something not quite right about him.”

“Sonny, we talked about that. You don’t have to like Ladd, that’s your business, but I’ve known him for twenty years. He had my back, and vice versa, in a lot of very dicey situations. When you work with a guy in a job like that day after day, it’s like you’re family. I’d trust him with my life. I’d trust him with your life.” He picked up the can of shave cream and squirted probably too much into his hand, balancing mostly on one leg and watching Sonny in the mirror. Sonny stared back at him, silent and relaxed, his gaze warm but telling. Sonny’s stare meant he would say more about Ladd if he thought Luki would listen. And there was a bit of irony in the mix. Luki got the message, though he wouldn’t have been able to explain how. Maybe he just knew Sonny that well now. “No, Sonny. Stop right there. There’s no comparison between the way I trust Ladd and the way I trust you, so you can’t measure one against the other. He’s my friend. You’re my life.” In usual Sonny fashion, he didn’t respond to that at all. Luki hated that, but he admired it as well. It was a rare skill, letting things go unsaid. And he used to think he had a corner on that market.

“I didn’t get plane tickets,” Sonny repeated. “I reserved an RV.”

“Excuse me?” He stopped with the mountain of shave cream lifted halfway to his face.
“An RV.”

“I heard you.” He waited, but clearly Sonny wasn’t going to say more unless he asked directly, so he voiced the most logical question. “Are you crazy?”

“Some people think so. Really, I’m just a weaver with a doctorate and a colorful history.”

“Sonny—”

“And it’ll be like a vacation.”

“C’mon—”

“It’s a really nice one.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“And on the way, we could listen to Delsyn’s blues.”

The big red dog—or how readers helped write Delsyn’s Blues, part 2 (Oh yeah, and another contest)

January 2, 2012

Back on June 20, 2011, on this very blog, a release party was in progress for book 1, Loving Luki Vasquez. In introduced my assistant, Boudreau. Here’s one of his pics, for those who haven’t yet met him:

Several readers/party attendees commented on the subject of cats and dogs in general, and I mentioned that I thought Vasquez and James might acquire a dog in Delsyn’s Blues. That led to “name that dog” contest at my Goodreads author blog. Now, Bear is a chow-mix totally devoted to Luki, despite Luki’s best efforts to discourage him. Here’s the picture readers used to name the new, bulky, four-legged character:

And another contest!

My last post was an excerpt. Tell me the name of the boat Sonny was driving, and their destination, and your in the running for ebook copy of Delsyn’s Blues. (If you entered the other contest, you can enter this one, too, but you can only win once, okay?)
Like before, answer in a comment here, or email me direct at lou(dot)sylvre(at)gmail(dot)com. Please enter! I love contests!

A brief excerpt from Delsyn’s Blues (farther along the twisting plot!)

January 2, 2012

(This is one of the softer, gentler, isles in the San Juans, just at nightfall.)

*

Climbing over the gunwale, Luki remarked, “Why did you call this a bucket? Looks like a perfectly good boat.”

“Look over the side, back there.” Sonny pointed.

“Melvern’s Bucket,” Luki read. “Oh.”

“So, anyway,” Sonny said. “Off we go to Mack’s Island.”

Luki had already sat down and started to do his routine weapons check. He tended not to be as heavily armed these days as he had been when they first met. But he still had his favorite handgun and two knives, and of course, a supply of ammunition and nylon handcuffs. He
was taking stock now, making sure everything was where and how it was supposed to be, a job clearly requiring that a cigarette hang out of his mouth. He puffed at the damn thing without using his hands, which meant he had to keep his eye squinted like Charles Bronson in The Mechanic and his face scrunched up on one side—the side with the scar. Sonny hated that he looked damn sexy that way.

“It’s not fair,” he said.

“What’s not fair?”

That something can look sexy and kill you at the same time. He shook his head to dismiss Luki’s question, didn’t answer at all out loud.
Besides, there were other things he needed to have his mind on now. And he hadn’t forgotten that one reason Luki seemed lightly armed was because he, Sonny, still had his other gun. Sonny didn’t bring the subject up, but he was pretty sure Luki hadn’t forgotten either.
Sonny set the boat in motion, having a fair idea of the coordinates and a fair sense of direction. Not more than fair, out on the water, just like he only had a fair ability to drive the damn boat. Melvern had insisted he learn, but… well, it just wasn’t a car. He couldn’t remember the first time he’d lain across a hood wrenching on a car engine, but as far as activities go, cars had always been what he loved best—aside from weaving and dyes and that sort of thing. And now, aside from Luki. Everything to do with Luki. Including staring at Luki, watching him smoke his lungs dry and play with guns. Disgustingly, Sonny wanted to weave him like that.

“I hate being on the water,” Luki said.

“Yeah?” It didn’t surprise Sonny; he just didn’t know why.

“I’ve had not so good things happen around water, you know?”

“Like getting beat up and cut and generally gay-bashed?”

“Mm-hm.”

“And almost drowning while getting blown up in a river.”

Luki holstered his gun and adjusted the position of the leather accessory, took the cigarette out of his mouth, and looked up at Sonny.

Not smiling. “That too.”

Sonny sighed and stepped over to his lover, letting the Bucket drive itself for a moment. He stood in front of Luki, so close he had to
part his legs to either side, which basically parked his sex in Luki’s face. He wished they had more time, but second best would have to do. He buried his hands in Luki’s curls, forcing him to look up. Then he bent low and eased into a kiss, a long, sweet, sucking and sliding one.

After a moment, he regretfully eased off, kissed Luki’s nose on the way by, and stepped back to the wheel. “Very nice,” Luki said, voice huskier than ever. “But there must be an explanation.”

“Now you’ve had something good happen to you on the water. I hope.”

Luki didn’t answer for a moment—which was okay. He absently patted the big red dog, which had been sticking close to Luki since they’d come on board and now leaned into Luki’s legs and stared with him at the gray planks that made up the deck. There was no way to know if either of them saw what they were staring at. After a moment, Luki looked up, chewing his lip, then he let it slip from between his teeth. “You love me, Sonny.”

Sonny nodded.

Luki said, “I love you back.”

The Story of Sonny James’s Beany–or how readers helped write Delsyn’s Blues (Part 1)

January 2, 2012

As mentioned in an earlier “mini-excerpt”, Sonny James wears a beany and scarf, putting it on to arm himself against weather and grief when Luki coaxes him out for a chilly walk. But when I first wrote the scene, he had on something far more sensilble, but less colorful and less meaningful. Here’s how the change occurred:

Friend and fellow writer Rhys Ford has a friend who goes by the name Swallow when she does her fine amigurumi. Amigurumi is a Japanese textile art creating small, detailed dolls with yarn. Rhys asked Swallow to create Luki and Sonny for me, and when she did, she gave Sonny a beany and scarf. These are so much in the spirit of Sonny that I took the idea and ran with it. Here are the dolls. You can’t tell from the photo very well, but even though Luki is dressed in finery, Sonny’s jeans are pretty stressed… ! Perfect.

By the way you can find Swallow’s fine work here: http://swallowtt.blogspot.com/

An excerpt from Delsyn’s Blues: the Prologue

January 2, 2012

Sonny's Forest

DELSYN played the blues, played his frustration and grief away with old songs, heart songs, songs that did the crying for him and let him laugh. Mostly, anyway.

It was hard, and it didn’t get easier. The summer before, he’d nearly died; he’d been long unconscious, and his brain had almost starved for oxygen—lacking the blood that was instead filling the spaces in his joints. He’d surprised everyone but his uncle Sonny James when, despite everything, he lived. Perhaps he’d surprised even Sonny when his brain recovered, worked almost like normal. But his joints hadn’t been so forgiving, and every bend of knee or ankle, every bit of weight to bear meant pain, sometimes as hot and swift as lightning.

He’d just turned eighteen. This wasn’t the way the world was supposed to work.

Del’s world had narrowed down mostly to Sonny’s acres, a beautiful place that he’d known all his life, but even there he couldn’t go wherever he wanted. A wheelchair is useless over rough, soft ground, and crutches worse, dangerous even. He loved this place and hated it for the trap that it had become. His music—his guitar and his mercifully spared hands—helped. Sonny did what he could: drove him up the coast to Neah Bay, into Port Angeles for a movie, into Port Clifton—the nearest town—for Frappuccino at Margie’s. A couple of times, Luki Vasquez—the man his uncle loved—had carried him on his back as easily as if he’d been a child, took him down to the beach, and helped him wade through the low waves at the edge of the Juan de Fuca Strait.

But he hadn’t once been in the forest, Sonny’s forest, the woods he’d grown up in—and that mattered. One night he’d felt particularly lost and frustrated, and after saying goodnight to Sonny and Luki, he’d left the house by the back door and made halting, unsteady progress on his crutches to the line of trees that guarded the thick forest beyond. The smells, cedar and dust and new-formed frost, were memory and real all at once, and Delsyn desperately wanted to be in there with the trees and insects, just breathing the same air. So, placing the crutches carefully where they didn’t sink, following one weak leg at a time, Delsyn went in.

He only made it a few steps before he needed to rest, so he propped his crutches against a familiar stump, a gigantic memory of the old-growth forest that once lived there, still rotting into red dust a century after it had been cut. He settled himself down carefully into its folds, glad he couldn’t see the bugs that were certainly feasting off the soft pulp even at this time of night. By shifting from foot to foot, he could rest his legs, and then he’d leave. But he was glad he’d come. For once, he’d go to sleep with sweet, forest-scented dreams.

He heard a scrabbling at his feet—probably a vole or a shrew, but he wanted to know just what it was that made the sound. “Light,” he mumbled. “I need a little light.” He always had his phone with him even though it was useless for making calls around Sonny’s place, where no signal could snake past the giant barrier of the Olympic Mountains. He used it to play games. He took pictures. He recorded his own music, the blues he loved to play. He planned to add the SD card to the tapes he’d made on an old cassette deck and give them to Sonny for his birthday in May, if he could wait that long. But for now he thought the phone could help him. He slid his thumb over the screen to light it up but soon realized the glow wasn’t enough to see the ground, and he knew he couldn’t bend down close if he wanted to be able to get back up. “Bummer,” he said and was about to slip the phone back into his pocket when he heard voices.

A man’s voice, rough and hard. “You’re an idiot! A fool, and if I’d known that before I got involved in your little retirement venture, I would have stayed miles away. Those twins are devious, worse because they’re stupid, too, and everyone in the life knows that—even their own daddy. You managed to pull them in, as lame as you are; that should have told you something.”

“I’m not sure it was them—”

“What an ass! They practically advertised the location. They’re the reason we had to move the samples.”

“And you’re the one who brought ’em here. Not the brightest, in my opinion.”

Del caught the sarcasm in the words, could imagine the man’s gesture encompassing Sonny’s land: “Here.”

“I know this place,” the first man said—a voice Delsyn didn’t recognize. “No one will look here. All we need is a little time when the owner—and his latest fuck—are absent, and we can move it again. Arrange it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Don’t even, you bastard. You’re stupid, and thanks to your little minions, nobody’s going to touch this stuff until it cools off. We’ll be lucky to move the goods by spring.”

The men were moving now, Delsyn guessed; their conversation became obscured by a rustle through leaf-trash and brush. Then, suddenly, he realized the voices were getting closer, and all at once he felt very exposed, very crippled, and very scared.

One set of footsteps moved back into the forest, but the other seemed to be looking for an exit, and that one would pass right by Delsyn. If Del had been fully able, if he hadn’t needed the crutches, he could have held still. But he had no faith in his body, and panic sent him stumbling toward the edge of the trees. He wanted to be out before the man caught him.

He might be killed, he thought. He didn’t want to die hidden in the dark.

“Hey!”

Too late. Aching to move legs that wouldn’t cooperate, Del shouted “Uncle Sonny!” But he was so afraid, his voice barely stumbled past the fear in his throat. And he was too far away from the house. And Sonny and Luki didn’t even know he was out here.

The voice seemed slimy, seemed to ooze up Delsyn’s spine. “Now, Del, take it easy. You know me. You know I’m not going to hurt you.

All I need is for you to tell me what you think you heard so I can explain. You probably misunderstood. We wouldn’t want you to get yourself hurt, now would we?”

Delsyn tried to answer, hoping he’d be smart enough to talk his way out of it. But he didn’t because he couldn’t. Ever since last summer, when he got upset—good or bad—his throat and tongue locked up, like he couldn’t get the language in his brain to come out into the world. And then….

A blow—no more than a slap, but Delsyn felt the change. Felt the simple knot that had held his damaged brain together slip free. Not in the dark, he thought, and he pushed forward as he fell. With moonlight in his eyes and shining silver on the coastal fog around him, Delsyn began to die.

Later, he knew he was no longer home, knew they had taken him someplace machines could reach him with their long plastic arms. A place to wait. And while he waited, he heard things.

A doctor said, “… very probably will not wake up.”

Sonny answered, “But he woke up before.”

Sonny spoke to Delsyn, sometimes, discussing and scolding as if they were riding in the Mustang on the way to the store. The nurses came in, usually chattering, one of them sounding young and very sweet. Other patients, still able to cuss out loud. Even Luki, singing the blues for him in that scratchy voice when he thought no one else was around. Del wanted to smile. He wanted to touch someone. He wanted to sing too. Then his brain came apart a little more and he dreamed a little farther down in the darkness where it was far too quiet. He entered a tunnel that led to the other side of that line, that fence between life and death. He felt pretty good about it. He’d done the best he could to say goodbye.

And he thought that, after all, dying might have been his own idea.