The Graveyard Shift
A Paranormal Romance Anthology
Jamie
K. Schmidt
Genre: paranormal romance * Date of Publication: 6/26/16
ISBN: 1534805680 * ASIN: B0177E5Z8S
Number of pages: 173 * Word Count: 54,000
Cover Artist: Jamie K. Schmidt
Book Description:
Erotic, Sexy and Sweet tales of
vampires, ghosts, mages, shifters and dreamers of dreams.
In this anthology, you will enter
an adult bookstore run by two vampires and partake in the bloodletting and sex,
see a witch accidentally summon a vampire who gains power through love making,
and then go clubbing with an urban vampire.
But vampires aren't the only
supernatural beings in this compelling collection of stories. Ghosts jam with
their favorite rock bands. A Grail Maiden helps protect Arthur's cup, and a
paralyzed cyber mercenary finds love inside virtual reality.
Excerpt:
DEIRDRE WAS A
EUROPEAN PRINCESS whose lineage, no one dared question too closely. She kept close companionship with Viola, a
dark Countess of equal renown and deadly beauty. In a time where the night was feared, they
flourished and fed at all the best parties of the nobility.
The Princess was
as fair and fey as a moonbeam with silver hair and cerulean eyes. She lived for excess and to play with her new
found friends.
The Countess was
the opposite side of the coin. With
raven locks and soulless black eyes, she was a lithe viper who struck quickly
and gleaned minions from the throngs of addled noblemen.
But good times
always end, even for immortal royalty and when the church's mercenaries, The
Prophecy of the Eye, became too interested in the beautiful thralls encircling
the Princess and the Countess, the parties suddenly stopped.
This cycle
continued for many centuries. Deirdre
and Viola graced Czarist Russia, continued on to Gay Paris and finally to the
New World in gin joints and sleazy jazz dives of the Big Easy.
While America
lacked the polished old world charm and the distinct respect for one's betters,
it also provided more of everything else, from money and thrills, to gambling
and illegal liquor.
Its wide terrain
allowed the Princess and the Countess to move from state to state until
technology caught up with them and they learned the value of keeping a low
profile. They were able to exploit the
innocence of the forties and fifties, but were swept away into a drunken frenzy
of Free Love.
By the late
seventies, they reached a rhythm that was blown away by the "Me"
generation of the eighties and the cynical creep of the 90's that exposed the
world's monsters in vivid detail across television screens and eventually the
Internet.
Now in the new
millennia, there is nowhere to hide and no other frontiers to explore. They found out the luxuries of the day could
be gone in an instant. Swiss bank
accounts could be seized and the Princess and the Countess could be among the
nouveau poor, scraping their living feeding off homeless and runaways. They have become merchants, biding their time
and hoping for another renaissance of excess.
An ignoble end for
two from the finest Carpathian bloodlines.
Perhaps a fitting
end some may say, for however pretty the monsters are, they are still creatures
of the night— or from hell as the church's mercenaries proclaim.
The church's
vanguards have also migrated from Europe. And like the Princess and the
Countess, they have morphed and remade themselves to fit the times. Always hunting, they are similar to the women
they chase, although they would balk to see the comparison. The church mercenaries seek to destroy magic
and any evil that lives outside their doctrine.
Whether their
victims deserve their fate or not is irrelevant.
It was so much
easier for both during the simple times, where murder was accepted and random
acts of violence and carnage need not be explained for helicopters with news
teams or amateur videographers. They've
learned a new dance for the modern world and it is kept to a very fine
line. Like the sword of Damocles, the
truce poises hair thin. It is not a
matter of if that strand will break, but when.
And darkness save
the innocents caught between.
Dream Killer
Flash Fiction By Jamie K. Schmidt
I swore I was going to do it. And this
time, I meant it. He had finally gone too far, pushed
my last button, and said the unforgivable.
“When I married you my dreams died.”
The fight ended quickly after that. In the
vacuum silence of words that can’t be taken back, he looked as stunned as I
felt. But he put up his chin with false bravado and waited for my one-two
riposte. I merely left the room.
The apartment shook when he crashed the
door open. He peeled out of the complex driveway in a puff of smoke and burned
rubber. A huge belch came from the living room and the stench of burning
sulphur wafted into my study. I came out to investigate. My husband’s words had
summoned forth a creature that was too small to be a demon, too malevolent to
be an imp. The creature was straddling the couch. Its yellow
eyes were narrowed at me. It hissed, showing pointy teeth. I crept closer and
it swiped out at me, its bony arms like broomsticks. His scissor bladed claws
cut the sleeve of my robe. I backed away, threw a pillow at it. It caught it
and shredded it into confetti. What was warlock born could not be witched away
but it also could not harm me. I hissed back at it and cast a protective spell
around my cat, whose back was arched like the letter A.
Three days of silence passed. My husband
was grumpy and sullen, rattling the paper and slamming dishes to fill up the
emptiness and the quiet. I moved like the walking wounded. There was a hole in
my soul where happiness once lived. I was numb.
The
creature would appear and disappear. Always watching, never attacking us. It played
with itself, picked its nose. But for the most part was content with existing
in the silence of our world. If my husband noticed it, he gave no sign. I
ignored it.
After a week, things gradually started
returning to normal. I still pretended to be asleep when he came to bed, when I
wasn’t in my office all night staring at the world map and wondering if anyone
out there hurt as much as I did. We didn’t talk, but I found I could meet my
husband’s eyes. I saw no apology in them, but I really didn’t expect to. The
creature faded slightly, became translucent.
But as I became angrier at the unfairness,
the creature fed on my emotions. As I thought, “Did he think that he was the
only one who sacrificed, compromised?”, it solidified again. Its teeth and
claws elongated and curved into Kris daggers. The creature followed me around
and would preen when I clenched and unclenched my fist.
Back in our routine, my husband would go
to work and come home. I stopped making supper or cleaning the house. He could
do his own laundry and fend for himself. I made phone calls and robotically did
what I had to do. He would stay in watching television or stay out late in
bars. I didn’t care either way. The creature would curl up on the couch beside
him or swing from the drapes, depending on our moods.
Today, I heard my husband in the shower
and I walked over to the window of my study and laid my forehead against the
window pane. The sensation was like eating ice cream too fast and I had a giddy
recollection of summer time. The door slammed and jolted me away from tire
swings and seagulls. I sipped my coffee as I watched him get into his car and
drive to work. He never looked up. I wonder if he even thought of me.
The creature plastered its tongue on the
window, making huge streaks. Shortly after ten, the movers arrived. I sat on my
kitchen counter and watched them professionally pack up my things. The
creature, hidden by my invisibility spell, danced around them and jumped from
box to box.
“No, that stays.” I said when they started
towards the TV set. I directed them to my office and went back to my perch,
slowly stirring a head ache relief potion.
The movers were expensive. But if I had to
carry box after box into my car all by myself I never would have left him. It
wasn’t the first time, I sat contemplating leaving. I would grab a handful of
clothes from the closet and got as far as the bed with them. I’d sit and wonder
if I should donate most to the Salvation Army before packing. Then I would
chide myself for giving up. And I would talk myself into staying. It was harder
to leave than in was to stay. We had been playing at being happy for a long
time.
I received my power from my dreams and
prayers. If I had made him impotent by marrying
him, then I could rectify that by leaving him. I picked up my cat and my purse
and walked out to the car.
When my husband came home tonight, I
wanted him to see the living room as it always was. He wouldn’t notice that my
books or my knitting would be gone. Maybe he’d watch TV for a bit. Maybe he
would go into the kitchen to raid the leftovers or to pop a frozen dinner in
the microwave. He wouldn’t notice my coffee mugs were missing or that my teapot
collection had been lovingly removed.
But he would see the creature, formed out
of his belligerence and sustained by our negative
emotions. I looked up from the parking lot to see it rubbing its butt cheeks
against the study windows. They would make a good couple.
The End
About the Author:
USA Today bestselling author, Jamie
K. Schmidt, writes erotic contemporary love stories and paranormal
romances. Her steamy, romantic comedy
Life’s a Beach reached #65 on USA Today, #2 on Barnes and Noble and #9 on
Amazon. Her Club Inferno series from
Random House’s Loveswept line has hit both the Amazon and Barnes and Noble top
one hundred lists and the first book in the series, Heat put her on the USA
Today bestseller list. Her dragon
paranormal romance series from Entangled Publishing, has been called “fun and
quirky” and “endearing.” Partnered with New York Times bestselling author and
former porn actress, Jenna Jameson, Jamie’s hardcover debut, SPICE, continues
Jenna’s FATE trilogy.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jamie.k.schmidt.1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jamiekswriter
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