About Shadow Rites
Slaying vampires is child’s play for skinwalker Jane Yellowrock. But handling the complicated politics of New Orleans’ supernatural players is another story…Jane is keeping the peace between visiting groups of witches and vamps in the city, but then trouble comes knocking on her doorstep. When her house is magically attacked, the wild chase to find her assailants unearths a mystery that has literally been buried deep.A missing master vampire, presumed long deceased, is found chained in a pit…undead, raving mad, and in the company of two human bodies. Now it’s up to Jane to find out who kept the vampire hidden for so long and why, because the incident could tip already high supernatural tensions to an all-out arcane war.
Excerpt
Wrassler greeted us. “Evening, Legs, Eli.”
I nodded to the big guy and moved into position for the pat-down. Wrassler was seriously huge, nicknamed so because he was bigger than any World Wrestling Entertainment superstar. He motioned a woman to pat me down and took Eli himself, walking with a limp, on a prosthetic that had replaced a foot and lower leg lost in a battle here at HQ. I knew that his injury wasn’t my fault, but I still felt the responsibility to help him move forward and cope with his new life. Responsibility was a step up from guilt, so, for me, that was good. I was growing. I used to try and carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. Eli and Alex had been working on me, schooling me to be fair to myself. I was trying.
The woman’s pat-down was professional and non-handsy and I declared the vamp-killer strapped to my thigh. “And I have wooden stakes in my hair,” I said.
“No silver?” she asked.
“Nope.”
She stepped back and away before I could look at her name tag. She was one of the new blood-servants from Atlanta. We were still integrating the blood-servants and -slaves of Atlanta’s former Master of the City.
“Leo’s in the gym with Gee,” Wrassler said. “He’s asked you to join him there.”
We signed in and walked away, Eli silent in his combat boots, my dancing shoes loud and somewhat clompy. Once behind the wall on the way to the elevator, I asked, “Well?”
“Did not detect a thing.”
IT’S JUST A DATE Part FOURFrom the world of Jane YellowrockCopyright Faith HunterWe arrived at Stephan’s with a few minutes to spare, the lights in the four star Cajun-Creole restaurant shining bright through the sparkling windows. The place had been refurbished and enlarged, the kitchen pushed back behind a wall, the lighting all copper, the tables all quartz-topped with cast iron bases, the seats all high-end leather.Stephan’s had originally been a diner, and had closed down after a fire just before I arrived in NOLA. When the place reopened a month past, it was no longer a dive that specialized in fried foods and crawfish, but an elite and expensive joint that required either lots of time on the waiting list for a reservation, or someone with moxi and power, to get one of the twenty tables sooner. Someone like Bruiser, the MOC’s former primo.We were shown to a large, U-shaped, leather-seated booth in back, big enough for us all with room to spare, but with limited linear length for us all to face the front door. Each of us was hardwired to sit so we could watch the entrance, and while the others were jockeying for position, I slid in, facing one of the back entrances that opened on the alley and the small courtyard. If I was a bad guy and had reconnoitered the restaurant, that’s the way I’d come in.I placed the cloth napkin on my lap and waited until the others realized why I’d sat. The women figured it out first. Syl drew a file and started working on her nails with false patience. Jodi just rolled her eyes and rested a hip against the table, waiting.The three alpha males looked both ways, considered the layout, looked at each other and, with that peculiar communication of battle-weary warriors, they each took a seat. Bruiser shoved me over so he could take the aisle. Eli maneuvered around in next to me in the center of the U, and pulled Syl in after him. Eli was the most limber and slightest of build. He could leap over the table faster than either of the others. Wrassler held out his strong right hand and encouraged Jodi into the seat next to Syl, so he could take on the other aisle seat. Wrassler was the biggest and the slowest, due to the injury he’d received in a battle at vamp HQ. Didn’t make him less valuable in a fight. Just meant he took a different job and different position.We three well-armed women shared a look that said, Aren’t they cute? and let the guys position us where they wanted. Not that we didn’t each decide how we would respond to a threat. Finding the best defensive positions was hardwired into us too.Together, we were that odd mixture of races and genders common to New Orleans and bigger cities, black, white, tribal, all sitting together. Eating together. Ready to defend our fellow diners from an outside threat, or a hidden threat from within. Together we were a small army.The waiter was a good looking local kid, skin a reddish brown color that suggested a gorgeous mixture of tribal, black, and white. He had a local patter and graceful social skills, as he gave a half-bow to our table. “How y’all doing tonight. A pleasure to have a such beautiful group of people in Stephan’s. Hope you’re hungry. Tonight there are three specials on the menu and a wonderful selection of wines to compliment the meals…”I tuned him out. Not just because I’d have the beef, and everyone at the table knew it, but because the head of NOPD district eight, Commander Walker, and his wife had just entered Stephan’s. At the same time, a thin trail of smoke was wending its way down the aisle from the direction of the restrooms at the back of the restaurant. And the smoke was purple.
Giveaway!
Tour-wide giveaway for 1 complete set of the Jane Yellowrock series (all 10 novels!), plus one $100 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card.
Faith Hunter, fantasy writer, was born in Louisiana and raised all over the south. She writes three Urban Fantasy series: the Skinwalker series, featuring Jane Yellowrock, a Cherokee skinwalker who hunts rogue vampires. The Soulwood series, featuring earth magic user Nell Ingram. And the Rogue Mage novels, a dark, urban, post-apocalyptic, fantasy series featuring Thorn St. Croix, a stone mage. (There is a role playing game based on the series, ROGUE MAGE.)
Under the pen name Gwen Hunter, she writes action-adventure, mysteries, and thrillers. As Faith and Gwen, she has 30+ books in print in 29 countries.
Hunter writes full-time, tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for travel, jewelry making, white-water kayaking, and writing. She and her husband love to RV, traveling with their rescued Pomeranians to whitewater rivers all over the Southeast.
Find Faith online at www.faithhunter.net, her blog, on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads; also www.yellowrocksecurities.com, and www.gwenhunter.com.
