Tuesday, June 12, 2012

First Fight/First Kiss Blogfest

Danielle of Entertaining Interests and Jackie of Bouquet of Books are hosting this awesome blogfest. The rules are:

  • Share your 1st FIGHT and 1st KISS scenes in your MS’s or WIP’s. Crack open your current project or dive back into an old one. We want to feel what your characters feel. From the sting of their first fist-to-the-face to the tingling taste of their first kiss.
  • If you’re not a writer, please share with us your real life firsts. We want to read and experience them all!
  • Post 1 will be on Tuesday, June 12 - Share with us your 1st FIGHT scene on your blog. It can be physical or verbal, fists or magic. Whichever you want to share.
  • Post 2 will be on Thursday, June 14 - Share with us your 1st KISS scene on your blog. It can be a peck on the cheek or a full fledge kissing session. Whatever you would like to tell us.

I wasn't sure if this had to be the first fight between the couple, but, well, I haven't written a scene like that yet, so I'm just going with the first fight scene in the book. Which also happens to be the first any scene. It's kind of long, so, um, sorry about that.

The magical gun vibrated in her left hand as it recharged, and Bex Addison idly wondered why it couldn’t reload as quickly as the Beretta in her right. Still, she held them pointed in opposite directions, hoping to stall her attackers until the gun had time to recharge.

A Magical Explosive Triggered Attack—or META—was so much more satisfying than an ordinary bullet.

A bang against the warehouse door focused her attention, and she shifted both guns to point at it. Another bang, this time accompanied by a dent, then another and another, until the door blew open, bits of metal and magic and debris crashing into the boxes that were acting as Bex’s cover. She shot the Beretta three times without looking, hoping Adrian wasn’t stupid enough to be running through that door. Dueling screams told her she’d hit a mark at least twice.

Not that it was stopping them. She counted quickly. The two she’d taken down now, plus the four she’d hit before they’d cornered her in the warehouse. Adrian had taken out three when she’d last seen him. He probably had a few more kills under his belt, but even without, there shouldn’t be more than a half dozen left.

Fucking Burn-Outs.

In the decade or so since scientists had figured out how to bottle and sell magic, it had become the hottest drug on the market. Every cartel in the country had figured out a new way to package it—smoke it, swallow it, sniff it, shoot it. The only problems were its highly addictive properties and its equally high volatile nature. There was no telling what magic could do to you.

Magic addicts were called Burn-Outs. Empty husks of men whose only concern was getting their next fix. They traveled in gangs, but they’d kill each other for even just a small dose.

And it was Bex’s job to catch them.

“B!”

Bex jumped, her head jerking up to see Adrian waving through a hole in the ceiling. “How’re the pickings, sweetheart?” he called, his lazy drawl making him sound like he should have been at a country club in Georgia rather than a boarded-up warehouse in Caldor County.

“Slim,” she called back. “Can’t be more than five or six left, I’d say.”

“Just three or four, prolly,” he argued, then she heard the thundering BOOM of his .357. “Make that two or three.”

She laughed. “Well, come on down here. I think they’re trying to figure out how to get through the doorway without getting their heads blown off.”

A moment later, he touched down next to her, not a hair on his pretty blonde head out of place. Bex was jealous. She’d never been able to master levitation. “You got ol’ Eloise fired up?” he asked.

Bex glared at him. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to call it that.” She put her hand on the magical gun. Nearly there.

“You agreed. I think Eloise is perfect name for such a lovely lady.”

“It’s my gun. I decide what to call it.”

“Her. Guns are always women.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

She raised an eyebrow in challenge, but Adrian answered promptly, “They’re beautiful to look at, deadly when necessary, and can have great power in a compact body.” He added a visual once-over to Bex’s 5’4” frame to emphasize his point.

“Aw, you old sweet-talker,” she deadpanned, and his careless grin widened.

“The ladies love a charmer.”

“How would you know?” she asked. “You’ve been married for 147 years.”

Adrian gave an obscenely loud sigh. “Six months, B. You were at the wedding.”

Bex hefted Eloise—the gun—into her hands and nodded at him. “In this job,” she said, “six months is the same thing as 147 years.”

Then she fired at the door to the warehouse.

The META would have deafened them both if not for the magically enhanced earplugs they wore, the ones that only blocked sounds over a certain decibel level. It would have blinded them if not for their goggles. And it would have eliminated them if not for the fact that they were behind it, not in front of it.

There were no Burn-Outs left on the other side.

“Hoo-ey!” Adrian crowed, pushing his goggles to the top of his head. “That baby is something else!”

In Bex’s hand, the gun purred softly, and Bex powered it down before it started to recharge. There was no way to shut the gun if there was magic stored in it. And there were very few ways to safely discharge the magic.

Also, there's a little over a day left to enter my 100 Twitter Followers Giveaway. You can win a free book! Check out the post to enter.

14 comments:

  1. You kind of blow me away with your writing. You manage to inject great description, tension and humour as if it's an easy thing to do! Fabulous work!

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  2. Lol, I like this guy. Sounds like exactly who I'd need next to me in this kinds of craziness. :D

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  3. Wow, this was awesome! :D Great job, girl!

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  4. A magic addict bounty hunter. Now that's a cool idea.

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  5. Great idea - magic for sale!

    Really flows! Thanks!

    Neil.

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  6. Wow... love this and I, too, am a magic junkie!

    Thanks for partaking in this with us!

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  7. I love the world you created here!! This was a lot of fun to read.

    Andrea

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  8. I would be so burnt out on Magic right now if I lived in that world. And probably broke too. Thanks for the enjoyable excerpt.

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  9. Awesome concept! Great descriptions here.

    Thanks for joining our blogfest!

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  10. I'm going to be honest here, I normally don't get into fantasy writing... I've always appreciated those that could write about magic, especially whenever I tried to do it, it came off hokey... but it's never been my favorite genre. However, this... this is something I can read. I love the concept and the gun is awesome. You're great with dialogue and the characters have a very real chemistry. I can't wait to pop back in on Thursday to read some more! :-)

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  11. Talk about some serious character! First off I LOVE the names. Secondly, wow. Talk about an infusion of personality! I'd read more. Is there more to be read? =)

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  12. I love it! What an awesome concept! And the pairing there was perfect! Great voices! Can't wait to read the kissing scene :)

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