Angel Town (27 page)
Authors: Lilith Saintcrow
Tags: #Fantasy, #Contemporary, #General, #Paranormal, #Fiction
Hopefully, after six books, I have once again earned a little leeway to bore you, dear Reader, with a closing word.
Jill Kismet started out as a “what-if?” character. I was tired of paranormal heroes and heroines who had adversarial relationships with law enforcement. If there were things that went bump in the night, I reasoned, the cops (and other first responders) would be more than glad to have a specialist on hand to deal with them. I asked myself what that specialist might look like, what kind of person would be attracted to that type of job. How they would deal with the stress of the paranormal, what sort of enemies they might face.
However, when Jill strolled onto the page in
Hunter’s Prayer
(which I actually wrote first) and began speaking, something much deeper than a “what if?” happened.
It’s not the type of work you can put on a business card,
she said, and I immediately felt a galvanic thrill along every nerve ending I owned. The more I wrote, the more it seemed Jill had just been waiting for me to sit still long enough to hear her. (I didn’t even know why she’d chosen the name “Kismet” until
Flesh Circus
.)
It is very unfair of me to compare characters, though such comparisons are all but inevitable. I’m often asked about Jill and Dante Valentine: if they’re sisters, if they came from the same place. They most emphatically do
not
. Danny Valentine is a broken character. Jill is not broken—bent a little, maybe, but still whole. I think that is the critical difference between them, though they both have smart mouths and a love of weaponry, as well as a streak of sheer adrenaline-junkie grade-A crazy.
Hey, write what you know, right?
Writing Kismet took me through some pretty dark times. I won’t deny that sometimes, writing a gruesome scene—the clinic in
Hunter’s Prayer
, the scurf-hole in
Redemption Alley
, the Cirque itself, at Carper’s graveside, the scrabble out of her own grave—I found solace in the fact that no matter how bad I had it, my character had it worse. I also can’t deny that many of the issues I wrestle with found an expression in her. As I noted in my goodbye essay on the Valentine series, any story about the possible future—or even about an alternate present—ends up saying far more about the writer than anything else. The filter the story passes through shapes it, for good or for ill.
Oddly, the character who affected me the most over the Kismet series isn’t Jill. It’s Perry.
If I did not feel physically filthy, if I didn’t crave a hot shower and scrubbing every time he wandered onto the page, I went back and dug deeper and did it again. As much as I loathe him, I ended up pitying him as well. That’s the tragedy of hellbreed—they carry their punishment with them. As Milton remarked,
“The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”
Human beings are very good at doing this as well.
Other characters came from different places. Saul was, in my original plans, only on board for one book. He was supposed to be a cautionary tale about how people with itchy trigger fingers and vigilante complexes are hard to have relationships with. Nobody was more surprised than me when the two of them made it work. I am asked many questions about Saul, and I have always wanted to note that if Saul’s and Jill’s genders were reversed, the vast majority of those questions would never see the light of day. They would simply match a number of assumptions and be let go.
Gilberto surprised me too. I had no idea why he was so important in
Redemption Alley
, but he literally would not go away. It was only later that I understood why. Monty and the various Santa Luz cops—fighting the good fight, being Jill’s backup, extending to her the rough take-no-prisoners compassion they give to each other—are homages to the silent heroes who, every day, respond first and do their best to keep other people safe. More than that, however, they are people Jill cares about. If there is a grace that saves her from becoming what Perry wants her to be, it lies in that caring.
Galina represents another type of courage—those who quietly and patiently guard and build. And dear, sweet Hutch, bulletproof in cyberspace and a weenie everywhere else, is probably the most gallant of the bunch.
Still, I had no Grand Statement I wanted to make with Jill. I had no agenda, unless it was to tell a good story in as unflinching a manner as possible. Jill’s job is not to look away; in that, hunters have a great deal in common with writers. I firmly believe that if a writer is honest, if the writer doesn’t punk out or look away, that their story will have the ring of truth, and it will reach the readers it needs to. I have done the best I could.
I am sad to say goodbye to Jill. But it’s time. Other stories are knocking at the door. All that remains is to thank you, dear Reader. Without you, this would be pretty useless, right? So, thank you very much for reading. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. And I cannot wait to tell you more stories.
But there will always be a part of me in Santa Luz, watching the moon rise over the bad old lady herself, while rooftops lie in shadow and neon smears the street. There will always be a jingle of silver flechettes and the creak of leather, and the sense that someone is watching even the darkest corners of the city. Someone is out there to right the wrongs, someone is going toe-to-toe and looking to settle the score. In some part of me, Jill Kismet will always be on the job.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Lilith Saintcrow was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing when she was ten years old. She currently lives in Vancouver, WA. Find her on the web at
www.lilithsaintcrow.com
.
Bannon and Clare: Book 1
by Lilith Saintcrow
Emma Bannon, Sorceress Prime in the service of the Empire, has a mission: to protect Archibald Clare, a failed, unregistered mentath. His skills of deduction are legendary, and her own sorcery is not inconsiderable. It doesn’t much help that they dislike each other, or that Bannon’s Shield, Mikal, might just be a traitor himself. Or that the conspiracy killing registered mentaths and sorcerers alike will just as likely kill them as seduce them into treachery toward their Queen. In an alternate London where illogical magic has turned the Industrial Revolution on its head, Bannon
and Clare now face hostility, treason, cannon fire, black sorcery, and the problem of reliably finding hansom cabs. The game is afoot…
T
he door was swept unceremoniously open, and Grayson visibly flinched. Clare was gratified to find his nerves were still steady. Besides, he had heard the determined tap of female footsteps, dainty little bootheels crackling with authority, and deduced Miss Bannon was in a fine mood.
Her curly hair was caught up and re-pinned, but she was hatless and her dress was sadly the worse for wear. Smoke and fury hung on her in almost-visible veils, and she was dead pale. Her dark eyes burned rather like coals, and Clare had no doubt that any obstacle in her way had simply been toppled.
Green silk flopped uneasily at the shoulder, but there was no sign of a wound. Just pale, unmarked skin, and the amber cabochon glowing in a most peculiar manner.
Grayson gained his feet in a walrus-lunge. He had turned an alarming shade of floury yeastiness, but most people did when confronted with an angry sorcerer. “Miss Bannon.
Very
glad to see you on your feet, indeed! I was just bringing Clare here—”
She gave him a single cutting glance, and short shrift. “Filling his head with nonsense, no doubt. We are dealing with conspiracy of the blackest hue, Lord Grayson, and I am afraid I may tarry no longer. Mr. Clare, are you disposed to linger, or would you accompany me? The Palace should be relatively safe, but I confess your talents may be of some use in the hunt before me.”
Clare was only too glad to leave the mediocre sherry. He set it down, untasted. “I would be most honored to accompany you, Miss Bannon. Lord Grayson has informed me of the deaths of several mentaths and the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Mr. Throckmorton’s erstwhile guard. I gather we are bound for Bedlam?”
“In one way or another.” But a corner of her lips twitched. “You do your profession justice, Mr. Clare. I trust you were not injured?”
“Not at all, thanks to your efforts.” Clare recovered his hat, glanced at his bags. “Will I be needing linens, Miss Bannon, or may I leave them as superfluous weight?”
Now she was certainly amused, a steely smile instead of a single lip-twitch, at odds with her childlike face. With that spark in her dark eyes, Miss Bannon would be counted attractive, if not downright striking. “I believe linens may be procured with little difficulty anywhere in the Empire we are likely to arrive, Mr. Clare. You may have those sent to my house in Mayefair; I believe they shall arrive promptly.”
“Very well. Cedric, I do trust you’ll send these along for me? My very favorite waistcoat is in that bag. We shall return when we’ve sorted out this mess, or when we require some aid. Good to see you, old boy.” Clare offered his hand, and noted with some mild amusement of his own that Cedric’s palm was sweating.
He didn’t blame the man.
Mentaths were not overtly feared the way sorcerers were. Dispassionate logic was easier to swallow than sorcery’s flagrant violations of what the general populace took to be
normal
. Logic was easily hidden, and most mentaths discreet by nature. There were exceptions, of course, but none of them as notable as the least of sorcery’s odd children.
“God and Her Majesty be with you,” Cedric managed. “Miss Bannon, are you quite certain you do not—”
“I require nothing else at the moment, sir. Thank you, God and Her Majesty.” She turned on one dainty heel and strode away, ragged skirts flapping. Clare arranged his features into something resembling composure, fetched the small black bag containing his working notables, and hurried out the door.
His legs were much longer, but Miss Bannon had a surprisingly energetic stride. He arrived at her side halfway down the corridor. “I know better than to take Lord Grayson’s suppositions as anything but, Miss Bannon.”
Miss Bannon’s chin was set. She seemed none the worse for wear, despite her ruined clothing. “You were at school with him, were you not?”
Was that a deduction
?
He decided not to ask. “At Itton.”
“Was he an insufferable, blind-headed prig then, too?”
Clare strangled a laugh by sheer force of will.
Quite diverting.
He made a
tsk-tsk
sound, settling into her speed. The dusky hall would take them to the Gallery, she perhaps meant them to come out through the Bell Gate and from there, to find another hansom. “Impolitic, Miss Bannon.”
“I do not play
politics
, Mr. Clare.”
“Politics play, even if
you
do not. If you have no care for your own career, think of mine. Grayson dangled the renewal of my registration before me. Why, do you suppose, did he do so?”
“He doesn’t expect you to live long enough to claim such a prize.” Her tone suggested she found the idea insulting. “How did you lose your registration, if I may ask?”
For a moment, irrationality threatened to blind him. “I killed a man,” he said, evenly enough. “Unfortunately, it was the
wrong
man. A mentath cannot afford to do such a thing.”
“Hmm.” Her pace did not slacken, but her heels did not jab the wooden floor with such hurtful little crackles. “In that, Mr. Clare, mentaths and sorcerers are akin. You kill one tiny peer of the realm, and suddenly your career is gone. It is a great relief to me that I have no career to lose.”
“Indeed? Then why are you—” The question was ridiculous, but he wished to gauge her response. When she slanted him a very amused, dark-eyed glance, he nodded internally. “Ah. I see. You are as expendable as I have become.”
“Slightly more expendable, Mr. Clare. But only slightly. Come.”
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