New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 “Mata Hari must be pretty bad, huh?”

“You know how in Buffy, the vampires are always so gorgeous and fun, then right before they sink their teeth into you, they turn really ugly? Lanie? Are you okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“Close.” No way was I going to admit we had something else in common. With my luck, he’d invite himself to the annual Buffy marathon with Felicity, Mandy, and a few other girls from the ship. I made a mental note to tell them not to tell the Evil Overlord.

“Maybe you should go home. Can you work from home? Can I give you a ride?”

“Aren’t you supposed to butter me up before I give you what you want?” I should have called in sick.

“You are my best friend.”

“No, I’m your commodore who doesn’t want to lose my new communications officer by having you move to Singapore to get away from Mata Hari. How did you ever get linked up with her, that she thought you two were a couple?”

“It started when we were kids. Granddad rented a house here in town one summer.” He leaned back, frowning at me.

“What? What did I do?”

“You probably know her. I think she’s your age.”

“Oh … man …” I fought down another surge of nausea. “Sylvia Grandstone?” I tried to laugh when he nodded. Maybe I hadn’t been hallucinating, catching glimpses of Sylvia? “My condolences. I grew up with her. She did the town a big favor when she ran off to Hollywood and hasn’t looked back since.”

“Warning, she’s back in town, gunning for a June wedding.”

“I have some friends in the military who can probably get you into Witness Protection.”

Daniel’s grin looked a little more normal.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

“Exactly what she said. I told her it was business-related, so she’d be bored, and we were still making arrangements.”

“Wimp.”

That got a grin from him. I thought maybe I had done my good deed for the day, helping him fight through the terror trying to smother him. If my still-nebulous suspicions were right.

“Have mercy?”

“Do I get to dump the Terry column and take back my sports beat?” I burst out laughing at the look of utter panic on his face. “I guess that’s a no. You know something? You make a pretty pathetic Evil Overlord.”

“A what?”

“That’s what I called you when you swept into the office back in November and rearranged everything on us.” I had to explain, since I had let that slip. What was wrong with me? Besides the fact that I actually liked fraternizing with the enemy?

“I’m not evil. I swear.”

“Gotta admit, you’re okay. For a rich guy. Even human,” I added, when that pitiful, begging look came back to his face. “The sign-up is at Eden.”

“You are saving my life.”

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 “She showed up on Christmas Eve, at my folks’ place in Cincinnati, claiming she must have missed my last phone call to discuss our ‘itinerary,’” he said, making air quotes. “All apologetic about coming so late, since she was so sure I had something wonderful planned for us to do. I went into panic mode when Mom gave me this deer-in-the-headlights look. Especially since we had been talking about some hinted threats from the future in-laws, if their darling little girl’s feelings got hurt.” Daniel sighed and rubbed his face, then raked his fingers through his hair. “All I could come up with for an excuse was taking over the Tattler. Really busy, ignoring everything, keeping my schedule open for emergencies. It was kind of weird how she didn’t react when I said Tattler, because she’s from around here.”

I must have made a sound. Trying to hold back the need to heave. My inner alarm of impending doom was so loud I couldn’t think clearly for a moment or two. Daniel gave me that worried look, like maybe I had turned green again.

“She was all sweet and forgiving and said she understood, and she would keep New Year’s free for us. I managed to sound halfway coherent and told her she was mistaken. I never called her, never emailed her, never made any plans for the holidays, and I already had plans for New Year’s.”

“Doing what?” I asked, feeling a little sorry for him. Now I suspected something of what he faced, the intimidation and the guilt factors being piled on him during that confrontation. All this despite my very sore brain refusing to accept the horrified conclusions trying to solidify out in the light of day.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

A surge of nausea went through me so strongly, I had probably turned green for a few seconds, at least. The way he was talking about the bride-to-be’s family sounded like the Grandstone clan. Reggie had publicly embarrassed himself last spring, insisting he and Doni Halliday were sweethearts. Until it finally got through his egotistical rock skull that his elusive bride was less than half his age. It was the Grandstone tactic to marry into power and wealth if they couldn’t lie or sue or intimidate to get what they wanted.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked.

Maybe I had turned green, and it wasn’t just my imagination?

I reflected back on the few times I had thought how he and Sylvia Grandstone were perfect for each other. Before I got to know him. Maybe I had imagined Sylvia around town the last few weeks because I was being so mean to Daniel? A guilty conscience making me hallucinate? I scrambled to get my brain back on track.

“So your mother is trying to deflect things and having a hard time? Don’t suppose you’ve thought about living in a castle with a really deep moat, stocked with piranha?”

That got a sickly grin from him.

“The really sad and kind of ironic part is that until this mess started, Mom was starting to put the ‘when are you going to make me a grandmother?’ pressure on me.”

“So, what’s this mail order bride like?”

He glared at me. Then he must have seen the idiocy of the whole situation, because he kind of deflated and slumped more in his chair and grinned back at me.
 

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 “What do you need an excuse not to do?”

“Not exactly do, but see.” Daniel shrugged and put his elbows on the desk and rested his chin in his hands. That made it hard for him to talk, but he managed. “How many times do you have to tell someone you don’t want to spend time with them before they stop insisting that you’re being silly and immature, and you were meant for each other?”

“Sounds fair to me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” That crease between his eyebrows got so deep, it threatened to bisect his nose. It struck me as kind of endearing, even cute. Panic shot through me a moment later.

“You never took the hint when you were chasing me around town.”

“Yeah, but I’m not a bloodsucking gold-digger with a Mata Hari complex.”

“Oh, a female stalker.” I had a hard time smothering laughter, but I tried, just out of a sense of pity.

“Save me. If we’re friends at all, give me a good excuse not to be available.”

“Just tell her you’re not free. You don’t have to give her an excuse.”

“My mother needs an excuse.”

“Your mother is playing matchmaker?”

“Never. She’s just having a hard time walking the line between convincing Mata’s parents that their daughter is delusional, no relationship exists between us, and starting a war in social media that will probably send the stock of our corporation into the basement. These people play hardball. They’ve got this attitude that they’re entitled to have anything they want. If that means marrying into the corporation, then their darling daughter and I don’t have any choice.”

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

“Besides, the ship isn’t having a New Year’s party.”

“So that means you’re free?”

Ah ha! We finally touched on the reason for his visit.

“I’m very expensive, and don’t you forget it,” I shot back.

That got raised eyebrows, then a more relaxed grin as he sat back in Franny’s chair. It conveniently tried to collapse into the full recline position, which it was not constructed to do.

While he struggled to get upright again and put Franny’s three sweaters back in place on the back of the chair, I fought with the paralyzing realization of the implications of his question. He wasn’t asking me to go out with him for New Year’s, was he? Why in the world would he do that?

“I’m busy. Working,” I said, when he was sitting upright and gazing hopefully at me again.

“Great. New material?”

“Not sure yet.”

“Umm, hate to tell you, but New Year’s Eve is only five days away. So where are you performing?”

“Eden.” It was no good keeping it a secret from him, since it was in yesterday’s newspaper. “It’s the annual overnight lock-in.”

“Lock-in? Like, no one gets out for the entire night? And no one gets in, once the doors are locked?”

The excitement in his voice made me suspicious. I was tempted to reach across the desk and grab his hand, to try to pick up any images in his mind for clues into his reasons and thoughts. However, no way did I want to hold hands with the ex-Evil Overlord. My only option was to ask or guess.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 “Good morning, Daniel. Did you have a nice Christmas? Yes, thanks, how was yours, Lanie?” He gave me that crooked grin too similar to my brothers’ when they were hiding something.

I echoed him obediently, which got a chuckle from him, and wheeled into the building. I paused and wobbled my chair from side to side (getting a wide-eyed look of shock and admiration from Daniel) to knock the sludge off the wheels, onto the entryway mat.

“So what are you doing here? Hiding from something?” I had to ask.

“What makes you say that?” he asked just a little too quickly.

Guilt. Sure sign of it.

“You don’t have to be here. You don’t need to be here. Especially on a Friday, when there’s probably tons of work to do at your own office. Therefore, unusual circumstances.” I led the way up the ramp to the level where my desk sat. The Tattler office occupied all four units in a row of buildings, with the common walls knocked out years ago. I maneuvered as I always did through the detritus from yesterday’s delivery crises. No chance of seeing his face when I made my Sherlockian deductions. Which might have been a mercy stroke for him.

“Maybe I want to see how the newest member of the company is doing, as we get ready to step into a new year?” His usual confident, pleasant expression was back on his nicely square-cut face when I turned around. I had to wonder if I mistrusted him more because he was good-looking than because he took away my beloved sports beat and stuck me with the lovelorn advice column, Talk to Terry.

“Well, I know you’re not fishing for an invitation to the next Trek party, because you have Mandy’s email and phone, so you can ask her.”

“I have just about everybody’s email and phone.” He grinned triumphantly as he settled down at Franny’s desk, which faced mine. Nice of him not to sit on my desk and look down on me. That was a power move I always resented. Sometimes I considered ramming people’s ankles with the footrests of my chair in response.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

There ought to be a law against a workday landing between Christmas and the weekend. I knew what waited for me. The half-awake feeling of the day after a holiday at the newspaper office. Everyone straggling in, fighting the don’t-I-get-a-holiday-too pokiness of the computers. The computers at our office made me believe in animism—inorganic objects having sentience. For instance, in college, my adviser celebrated the first snowfall of the season throwing snowballs at the window of the Humanities dean … until one snowball broke it. When we had a freeze two days later, the only pipes on the entire Willis-Brooks College campus that froze and broke were in his office. Animism.

My brain still churned over our breakfast conference, the poisoned dart in my neck, and the adrenaline rush of having had my life threatened. I could have claimed some invalid status, either physical or emotional. But no, I had responsibility branded into my genetic structure by my parents. Which was weird, considering what hippies they were.

So with heavy heart and slushy gloves, I pushed my chair through the sludge filling the parking lot and up the ramp to the office door. And nearly got brained by the door when Daniel pushed it open just as I was reaching for the handle.

Yes, I had finally gotten into the habit of calling him Daniel instead of the Evil Overlord. Honestly, how could I hate a fellow Trekker who was a not-so-secret-anymore fan of my comedy?

“What are you doing here?” I nearly forgot to grab at my wheels to keep from sliding backwards down the ramp.

Having the new owner show up before the office was officially open for business was odd enough to be suspicious.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 “So if we can get rid of the parasite and stop it poisoning the energy …” Felicity’s eyes narrowed. She tipped her head to one side, studying me. “Eventually she could walk again, and fly again?”

“Such a determination would require intensive study from those who are more qualified, with centuries more experience than I possess,” the doctor said. “But yes, in theory. Here’s the frightening aspect. I sense some inimical intelligence attached to the poison. If it was left in place long enough, it would eventually have overcome the natural defenses of heart and soul and mind, establishing a foothold for some very nasty invaders. And the smell, the taste of that power …” He sighed, and his eyes got big, sad, like he might tear up in a moment. “I am sorry, my dear, but it is another face of the ancient malevolence.”

Angela let out a soft, slow, deep breath and settled into the chair facing mine. A shaky little smile twisted her mouth.

“You know, I’m almost relieved to know that.”

“One enemy instead of several?” Hayward said.

“Exactly.”

“Okay.” I probably shouldn’t have been speaking what leaped into my head, but my brain felt clear for the first time in more than a day. “So the creeps who sent Jay and the other guys after me are the same ones who have been sucking out the energy that defends Neighborlee? And maybe they’re the same creeps who are causing my dreams? So maybe these guys are working with the snake?”

“No.” The doctor shook his head, just twice, the movement sharp enough to make his fuzzy hair whip around. “That ancient enemy is an entirely different song and aroma. What attacked you, my dear young guardian, is entirely of terrestrial origins.” He sighed and seemed to deflate about two sizes. “However …”

“It’s trying to contact the snake hiding underneath Neighborlee, isn’t it?” Felicity said, nearly on a whisper. She offered a weak little smile, and Kurt slid an arm around her shoulders. “I really hate it when I remember dreams I forgot. There’s a big, ugly … thing, trying to make contact, like Morse code, and someone heard it.”

That morning we started referring to the snake as Big Ugly. The new label reduced the squirming feeling and the mental image of Dune sandworms bursting up from the floor, with buzz saws for teeth.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

“How do you know it’s poison?”

“Oh, not to kill. No, to debilitate.” The doctor stopped, mouth open as if about to say something else. He narrowed his eyes at me, then held out both hands to me, palms up. “Indulge me?”

I hesitated, then glanced at Angela. She frowned at the doctor, but she glanced at me and nodded. I put my hands in his. Again, that singing feeling. The numb patches in my legs and my back woke up to tingles that burned for a few seconds, then faded entirely. I felt like I could walk up the stairs to Angela’s apartment without holding onto the railing.

That sporadic sense of being whole, of my legs being reliable, had been missing since fall. When the doctor asked how I felt now, I told him that.

“All right, you want to fill the rest of us in?” Kurt said.

Sometimes I really loved it when he slid into his protective big brother role.

“Angela’s theory is correct. Something has been slowly draining the defensive energy enclosing the town and supporting the wellbeing of its defenders. The same parasite, if you will permit such a crude term—the same parasite also taints the energy that remains.”

“Meaning Lanie should have been healed, but the taint is having the opposite effect?” Hayward said.

It struck me as odd, a violation of some unspoken natural laws, that this stern military man understood what I suspected came under the heading of magic.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 “I received your call for assistance after some delay, my dear.” He stepped into the room. He had an enormous doctor’s bag, also in dark purple. “Is there anything I can do? I must apologize for arriving too late to handle the dirty work for you.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Angela pressed tape over the gauze, fixing the pad into place, then patted my shoulder. “I would appreciate a more experienced eye. I hope you won’t take it the wrong way, but I do pray this doesn’t fall under your expertise.”

“Not at all, not at all.” He stepped over behind me. Cool, thin fingers touched my neck, but didn’t peel up the gauze.

A silvery kind of song spun through my blood—the only way I can describe the sensation. It washed away the dregs of the itching. The throbbing in my sinuses turned into a tickling sensation, then vanished.

“You’ll be glad to know you didn’t need my help dealing with the consequences,” the doctor said after a few moments. He sniffed loudly. “Ah, I see Delphinia has graced you with some of her miraculous salve. You’re in good hands, young lady. Very wise, coming to Angela in matters of poison.”

“Poison?” Kurt yelped.

I turned to face them all. Angela was giving the doctor a scolding look. Col. Hayward’s concern became a scowl, and I felt a moment of fear for whoever got the full blast of that anger. Then I felt good, because he was angry for me.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

There was blood and Angela had to use of that scalpel, after much digging with those tweezers with needle-fine tips. She used something to numb my neck, but I felt a tingling-humming down in my bones, the longer she probed. I would have been more comfortable if Felicity hadn’t been holding my hand. She squeezed harder, the longer it took to get the dart out. That and her little flinches made me want to scream and punch someone.

The worst part was having to wait to hear what Angela and Kurt had done all Christmas day. I would have appreciated some distraction, but Angela needed to concentrate.

What she pulled from my neck was as long as the first joint of my pinkie, thinner than a hair, with a brief greenish glint, reflecting the light, as she turned it. Hayward put it in one of the wooden boxes Angela used to store things on the fourth floor.

“Ah, I’m sorry.” An unfamiliar voice came from the hallway.

A shimmering kind of sound, more felt along my skin than heard, accompanied the creaky-silvery voice. I nearly jerked, as Angela pressed a thick gauze pad cold with salve over the hole she had dug in my neck. From the corner of my eye I saw a skinny old man with a halo of white hair around his pink bald head, wearing a dark purple jogging suit. He leaned into the doorway, blinking his huge green eyes and giving us all a sheepish grin.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 My woolgathering got me to the main room of the shop. Angela had assembled a little operating room, with tweezers and antiseptic, witch hazel, a pot of her herbal salve, and a few doctor’s instruments, including a scalpel. It all waited on a thick white cloth on the little bistro table where we usually sat to drink chai and discuss guardian matters. I was in no shape to either force my unsteady legs to get me up the stairs, or work with Kurt to fly me up there. Just the thought of using my telekinesis made my head throb again.

“Whoever took the Parker boy was prepared,” Hayward said, once everyone had taken seats and Angela started washing my neck before examining it. “They were ready for failure. If as you speculated the three boys broke free of their handlers, maybe they were closing in. They could have witnessed the takedown on Tuesday. One telling factor in the report I got, which was more extensive than the one your friend, Stanzer got …” He glanced at Angela, who was standing behind me.

“What?” I said, trying not to snap, when the look he gave her was full of communication. I very much hated feeling I had been made a little kid again who needed to be protected.

“Parker was itching and had red patches on his neck. Those false military walked in with their paperwork and took custody of him before the doctor arrived to examine him.”

“False military?” Kurt said. “You’re sure?”

“I have contacts in all the branches. Those people who took the boy were not military, no matter how secretive.”

“So you’re safe,” I said. “Nobody will turn you in, reveal what you’re doing here.”

“We can only hope,” Hayward said with a slight nod and a weary, thin smile.

“I think you’re right.” Angela rested two fingers on the right side of my neck. “There’s something in Lanie’s neck, and the hives are an allergic reaction, resisting the invader.”

“They shot me with what … a tracker?” My neck burned where she touched me. Hopefully just psychosomatic.

“I’m thinking drugs. Reinforcing their mind control on the boys,” Hayward said. “The question is if they intentionally shot you, or you got in the way when they were shooting Parker.”

“Can you get it out?”

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

Kurt and Col. Hayward came out to meet us. The Colonel took charge of pushing my chair and Kurt walked around my Jeep twice, scanning it with one of his gizmos. I didn’t want to know what he was looking for, any more than I wanted to know why he thought he should scan for something nasty.

“You don’t have allergies,” Hayward said, once we were all inside. He was still behind me, and I turned enough to see him frowning at the back of my neck.

“Now I do,” I said. Then I saw Angela standing in the doorway of the main room. She looked like she hadn’t slept, and she had her peacock shawl wrapped around her, over her usual blue handkerchief print dress. “I’ve had invasion dreams. All day yesterday. The snake is moving.”

“The defenses of the town are …” Angela shrugged and took a deep breath. Exhaled. “Wobbling is the closest description. Fluctuating, strong and weak, badly enough to cause discord with the music of the shop’s defenses. It was heavy Christmas Eve, faded during the day, then resumed once Ben and Bethany left. I spent most of the night bringing everything back into tune.” She held out a hand to me. “Franklin and I have been discussing your problem.”

Kurt was heading down the hall ahead of me, and he glanced back, cocked an eyebrow, met my gaze, then shifted to Hayward, who was still behind me. My brain was working slower than normal before I caught on. So that was Hayward’s first name. Franklin Hayward. Since he was also a Lost Kid, I wondered who had found him and where, and the reasons for naming him.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 Yeah, right, like Divine’s Emporium wasn’t the safest place in the entire town, if the snake attacked?

Yet Athena and Doni had been sleeping over at Divine’s when the snake attacked them. Athena had stepped through a wall into another dimension, tricked into thinking Doni was in danger. There were weak spots, even at Divine’s. Stephanie’s death and my broken back proved the energy defending our town was weakening. Continually fading on us.

I slathered more salve on my hives, waited until it was nearly dry, got dressed, and headed for Divine’s Emporium. My dreams likely meant I had been eavesdropping on the enemy’s intentions. The guardians needed to consult with Angela. Felicity had sensed something was wrong, and she was awake and dressed and ready to go when I came outside. She met me at my Jeep. I wanted so much to hear how her Christmas with Jake went. The fact that she wasn’t shimmering with excitement meant she didn’t get that engagement ring. Instead, she made me tell her about my dreams.

Kurt’s truck was sitting in the lot next to Divine’s when we arrived. I pulled up and parked at the curb in front of the gate, behind a now-familiar sedan with a discrete military sticker in the window. A powdered sugar snow was falling as I slid out of the driver’s seat and braced myself on the door. My head throbbed when I prepared to pull my wheelchair out of the car with telekinesis. I couldn’t do it with my arms because I still ached in all my joints. Felicity told me to wait, and she came around to take care of it for me.

While she unfolded my chair, I got that shivery-creepy feeling down my back that I always equated with someone nasty watching me. I looked around, but the snow thickened and I couldn’t see anyone on the sidewalk on either side of the street. For the first time, I was not glad there were empty lots next to Divine’s and across the street. The lights from the nearest houses looked miles away. The big olive-and-gold Victorian house looked a little creepy in the growing haze of snow.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

I woke up late Christmas day with a splitting headache. Along with the hives that kept spreading, despite Angela’s tea, my joints ached. I spent most of Christmas day sprawled on the sofa, sipping tea and dozing. The boys got to gorge on all the goodies: shrimp, cheese ball and crackers, smokies in barbecue sauce, wings, egg rolls. My stomach did backflips just thinking about the food I was missing. Felicity and Jake elected to have a quiet, romantic Christmas day at her place, rather than joining us. I didn’t blame them. I made a bet with myself she would get a ring for Christmas.

My big mistake was combining Angela’s salve and tea with antihistamines. I spent the day in a haze, broken at irregular intervals by strange dreams that kept jerking me up out of sleep, trying to fly away from something nasty. My strongest impression through all those twisting, looping, slimy dreams was of something trying to drill or melt or pound its way through a shield around Eden. Sometimes it turned into the Wishing Ball, and Divine’s Emporium was inside it.

Friday morning, I woke up before dawn with the worst dream yet. In it, Bethany and Athena were having a sleepover at Divine’s, like they used to do when they were little. The house filled with shadows that reached out tentacles from the walls and tried to grab both girls. That frightened me, because Bethany had made it home for Christmas just before midnight. She and her father, Ben, had spent Christmas day with Angela, who was Bethany’s godmother. I was worried because we had kept her ignorant of her heritage as the daughter of a guardian. Stephanie had died defending Neighborlee from the snake trying make our town its doorway to invade Earth. We had honored her wishes that Bethany not become a guardian. What if the snake or whatever that ugly, persistent enemy really was, had made Bethany a target because she was ignorant and untrained?

New Book! NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee Book 5

 

Night of the Living Proof 

The shadows from Lanie's past continue to haunt her and her friends as Neighborlee moves from Christmas to New Year's Eve. Something or someone is tampering with the magical defenses of the town. Things and people disappear and reappear, with no explanation, and gaps in memories and time. An age-old nemesis is gathering its strength for another attempt to shatter the door that Divine's Emporium holds shut. 

Sylvia Grandstone returns, and she's got her sights set on Daniel, Lanie's new boss. It's the same old Grandstone scheme to gain power and wealth by any means possible, including marriage. It would be easy to blame Sylvia for the new problems and mysteries, applying the Jessica Fletcher theory of crime-solving: the most famous guest artist is the murderer. However, Sylvia's years in Hollywood never got her anywhere near star status, and no one would ever believe she could be a criminal mastermind. Or so the guardians would like to believe. 

As New Year's Eve approaches at Eden, the Neighborlee community center, the disappearances and time gaps increase. Instead of trying to convince town officials to cancel the New Year's Eve party, the guardians prepare for a showdown, and brace themselves to do what they have always done: defend the people of Neighborlee from the outside world, and defend the outside world from the magic and wonder and general weirdness that is Neighborlee, Ohio.

From Ye Olde Dragon Books

www.YeOldeDragonBooks.com

Coming title: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

Neighborlee, Ohio

Book 5

Print release date January 1, 2021

www.YeOldeDragonBooks.com