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lagilmanMmm. Warm pear-and-bacon salad for dinner. Life is good.
Almost ready to send this sucker back for copyedit (and we mean it, this time!). Second-pass revisions are strange beasts -- you're building on stuff that you've already built on and sometimes it turns out you have to tear something down rather than rebuild it, and sometimes you stare at something and think "nope, that was right, that's as good as it's going to work" and walk away from it before you do damage. We were right to give it another once-over -- but now I worry about new errors being introduced, and feel the urge to lay on an extra cone of burnt offerings to the copyeditor.... But it's good. It works. I found myself getting caught up in the story as I was working, even knowing what was going on, and that's a very good thing.
And since I haven't done you guys a snippet in a while, here's a sizable one. There's just one wee spoiler you might not even notice...
"You like to challenge me, don’t you?" Morrie glared down at the Retriever as though expecting her to be intimidated. Seven feet tall and three feet across, with a face like hardened, semi-successful prizefighter, Morrie probably looked intimidating as hell. If – and this was a big if – you didn’t know that underneath that granite façade beat the heart of the biggest showoff on the entire northern continent.
Wren knew. It didn’t always help.
"I live to challenge you," she said in response. "It’s what gives my life meaning, my lungs breath, my loins heat, my –"
"Oh for fucks’ sake, stop. You’ll make the cat laugh."
The cat in question, a smooshed-face orange Persian, didn’t even bother to look up at either one of them, being more intent on napping in the sun-filled window seat, on a black velvet cushion.
It was just Morrie and the cat in the entire house, an old Victorian at the far tip of Long Island, about as far away from everyone as he could get and still be considered a local celebrity of sorts by Manhattan’s Cosa, if by ‘celebrity’ you meant ‘the guy everyone wanted it to be known they knew, but nobody actually wanted to know.’
Once, Wren had been told, his kind had lived all up and down the East Coast. Now, he was the only one left. Or, at least, she amended to herself, the only one who still had contact with the rest of the Cosa. Like pandas, stone giants were secretive, shy, and really not good in crowds. There could be a dozen of them in the area, and they just never felt the need to come down and mingle.
Like demon, actually, except that demon tended to make a living off others, and so had to be out and about, couriering and body-guarding. Giants… never seemed to need to make a living. Morrie only did what he did because it meant he got to score points off lesser and less-knowing mortals. He didn’t ask for money, or food, or goods of any kind, just the knowledge that people had to come to him to get what they needed.
He made it a point of pride to always deliver. But you had to beg, first. That was what he got off on, making people beg.
"Morrie. Come on, you’re killing me." She jumped up on the table, a solid piece of wood polished to a high gleam, in order to be able to see him eye-to-eye. Or eye to chin, anyway. A stone giant might not be one of the big guys of yore, but they were still plenty big, in her book. "A simple, little favor. The kind you do better than anyone else." She waited, and he stared back at her, impassive. "You won’t even tell me you can dig up something for me? Two easy-peasy names?"
Wren wasn’t good at begging. She touched her core, and felt the cool immobility of bedrock, let it ooze a little out of her. Not overt, but enough for Morrie to feel, even if he didn’t know why, or where it came from. Stone to stone.
He crossed his arms across his bare chest and scowled down at her feet. "Get the hell off my table. I can dig up anything. Tell me why I’d want to."
"Because I want to know?" She got down off the table, noting that her feet hadn’t left a smudge on the wood. That was some serious high-gloss.
"Not good enough." He turned away and clucked at the cat, who continued to ignore them both.
"Because they’re bad, bad people who need to be stopped?"
"By you?" A stone giant’s snort was not a thing to underestimate. Wren had to take a full step back under the gust. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to take offense at his dismissal or take it as a compliment that she too was a bad, bad person – or at least someone who wasn’t overly bothered by bad, bad people. Morrie was weird even for a giant, it was tough to know what went on in his head. Although he did have a few known weaknesses….
She sighed deeply, reached down into her bag of tricks, and played her trump card. "It would mean a lot to Sergei if you did this for us."
Morrie gave her a half-glare from under his heavy lids. "Don’t play me, Retriever. He’s gorgeous, but not that gorgeous." He shifted in his chair, a huge, reinforced throne of hardwood that weighed about as much as a VW Bug, and stared out the plate glass window. He had a view of the Long Island Sound that was probably worth a mid-sized fortune, and all Wren could think about was how cold it must be in the winter, with nothing to stop the winds from rushing in off the water. The wind off the East River was bad enough to knock her backwards when she stepped off the curb downtown; that would probably send her flying.
Stone giants didn’t have that kind of problem. The ‘stone’ in their names didn’t just come from the way their skin looked; they were rock-solid bastards, epidermis to marrow. Morrie was wearing pants – leather job that must have cost a fortune to custom-make, unless he did the work himself – only as deference to her modesty, not because his skin needed the protection.
She had dragged her ass all the way out here, dealing with insane Friday morning traffic, and the bastard was going to make her sweat it even more. God, she hated dealing with the fatae, sometimes. Most of the time. The clock was ticking, damn it, and she was doing this to protect one of their own!
Except most of the fatae didn’t really think of demon as one of their own; if they didn’t like admitting tails, then liked admitting created cousins even less. Especially created-by-human. Wren supposed she understood that, but enough was god-damned enough. She could feel something inside her stirring, wanting to get moving, and it was becoming more and more of an effort to keep it tamped down, even with the aid of the bedrock-current. They needed details before she could move, and she needed to move now, without anyone else knowing what she knew or that she knew it. That meant that they needed Morrie.
The stone giant was still staring out the window when he finally spoke, and it took her a moment to realize he was talking to her. "Two names. Fine. Time frame?"
She didn’t stop to wonder why he had finally agreed. She really didn’t care. "They got into town last week, ish. Address and all known info I got, you got. I need to know who they know, who they’re taking instructions from, who they’re meeting with, what makes them jump. And I need to know now."
"Now as in, this week, or…"
"Now as in, I’ll wait right here."
The giant grumbled at that. "You’re not staying anywhere near me while I work, lonejack. Like as not kill all my tech. Go into the kitchen and make yourself a sandwich. Put some flesh on those bones of yours. Humans, phagh. No idea how to stay healthy, all over too skinny and soft, like jellyfish." He flapped one thick-fingered hand at her. "Go, out of my sight."
His kitchen was as oversized as everything else, and just as empty of furnishings. Giants weren’t much on furniture, or any kind of normal-sized comfort. But there was a fresh-baked baguette in the bread-bag, and some kind of fish spread and half a dozen cheeses in the fridge, along with the makings of a green salad. No coffee or soda, but there was overly-tart lemonade that was surprisingly refreshing once she cut it with seltzer. By the time Morrie bellowed her name, Wren had managed to make a sizable dent in the food, and was feeling a post-gorge satiation. If this were a fairy tale, she thought sleepily, sitting on the floor with the remains of her meal spread out in front of her, the giant would be in the other room preparing a nice toasty fire to broil her on for his dinner.
She wondered, just as sleepily, if she should have told someone where she was going before she left the city, and if Sergei would find her bones or if Morrie would use them for toothpicks.
"Retriever! You want this information or not?"
She did.
©Laura Anne Gilman
And now I'm going to go stare at the tv for a while. If we're not all gone *poof* in the wee hours by a sudden black hole, I'll see y'all tomorrow.
Almost ready to send this sucker back for copyedit (and we mean it, this time!). Second-pass revisions are strange beasts -- you're building on stuff that you've already built on and sometimes it turns out you have to tear something down rather than rebuild it, and sometimes you stare at something and think "nope, that was right, that's as good as it's going to work" and walk away from it before you do damage. We were right to give it another once-over -- but now I worry about new errors being introduced, and feel the urge to lay on an extra cone of burnt offerings to the copyeditor.... But it's good. It works. I found myself getting caught up in the story as I was working, even knowing what was going on, and that's a very good thing.
And since I haven't done you guys a snippet in a while, here's a sizable one. There's just one wee spoiler you might not even notice...
"You like to challenge me, don’t you?" Morrie glared down at the Retriever as though expecting her to be intimidated. Seven feet tall and three feet across, with a face like hardened, semi-successful prizefighter, Morrie probably looked intimidating as hell. If – and this was a big if – you didn’t know that underneath that granite façade beat the heart of the biggest showoff on the entire northern continent.
Wren knew. It didn’t always help.
"I live to challenge you," she said in response. "It’s what gives my life meaning, my lungs breath, my loins heat, my –"
"Oh for fucks’ sake, stop. You’ll make the cat laugh."
The cat in question, a smooshed-face orange Persian, didn’t even bother to look up at either one of them, being more intent on napping in the sun-filled window seat, on a black velvet cushion.
It was just Morrie and the cat in the entire house, an old Victorian at the far tip of Long Island, about as far away from everyone as he could get and still be considered a local celebrity of sorts by Manhattan’s Cosa, if by ‘celebrity’ you meant ‘the guy everyone wanted it to be known they knew, but nobody actually wanted to know.’
Once, Wren had been told, his kind had lived all up and down the East Coast. Now, he was the only one left. Or, at least, she amended to herself, the only one who still had contact with the rest of the Cosa. Like pandas, stone giants were secretive, shy, and really not good in crowds. There could be a dozen of them in the area, and they just never felt the need to come down and mingle.
Like demon, actually, except that demon tended to make a living off others, and so had to be out and about, couriering and body-guarding. Giants… never seemed to need to make a living. Morrie only did what he did because it meant he got to score points off lesser and less-knowing mortals. He didn’t ask for money, or food, or goods of any kind, just the knowledge that people had to come to him to get what they needed.
He made it a point of pride to always deliver. But you had to beg, first. That was what he got off on, making people beg.
"Morrie. Come on, you’re killing me." She jumped up on the table, a solid piece of wood polished to a high gleam, in order to be able to see him eye-to-eye. Or eye to chin, anyway. A stone giant might not be one of the big guys of yore, but they were still plenty big, in her book. "A simple, little favor. The kind you do better than anyone else." She waited, and he stared back at her, impassive. "You won’t even tell me you can dig up something for me? Two easy-peasy names?"
Wren wasn’t good at begging. She touched her core, and felt the cool immobility of bedrock, let it ooze a little out of her. Not overt, but enough for Morrie to feel, even if he didn’t know why, or where it came from. Stone to stone.
He crossed his arms across his bare chest and scowled down at her feet. "Get the hell off my table. I can dig up anything. Tell me why I’d want to."
"Because I want to know?" She got down off the table, noting that her feet hadn’t left a smudge on the wood. That was some serious high-gloss.
"Not good enough." He turned away and clucked at the cat, who continued to ignore them both.
"Because they’re bad, bad people who need to be stopped?"
"By you?" A stone giant’s snort was not a thing to underestimate. Wren had to take a full step back under the gust. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to take offense at his dismissal or take it as a compliment that she too was a bad, bad person – or at least someone who wasn’t overly bothered by bad, bad people. Morrie was weird even for a giant, it was tough to know what went on in his head. Although he did have a few known weaknesses….
She sighed deeply, reached down into her bag of tricks, and played her trump card. "It would mean a lot to Sergei if you did this for us."
Morrie gave her a half-glare from under his heavy lids. "Don’t play me, Retriever. He’s gorgeous, but not that gorgeous." He shifted in his chair, a huge, reinforced throne of hardwood that weighed about as much as a VW Bug, and stared out the plate glass window. He had a view of the Long Island Sound that was probably worth a mid-sized fortune, and all Wren could think about was how cold it must be in the winter, with nothing to stop the winds from rushing in off the water. The wind off the East River was bad enough to knock her backwards when she stepped off the curb downtown; that would probably send her flying.
Stone giants didn’t have that kind of problem. The ‘stone’ in their names didn’t just come from the way their skin looked; they were rock-solid bastards, epidermis to marrow. Morrie was wearing pants – leather job that must have cost a fortune to custom-make, unless he did the work himself – only as deference to her modesty, not because his skin needed the protection.
She had dragged her ass all the way out here, dealing with insane Friday morning traffic, and the bastard was going to make her sweat it even more. God, she hated dealing with the fatae, sometimes. Most of the time. The clock was ticking, damn it, and she was doing this to protect one of their own!
Except most of the fatae didn’t really think of demon as one of their own; if they didn’t like admitting tails, then liked admitting created cousins even less. Especially created-by-human. Wren supposed she understood that, but enough was god-damned enough. She could feel something inside her stirring, wanting to get moving, and it was becoming more and more of an effort to keep it tamped down, even with the aid of the bedrock-current. They needed details before she could move, and she needed to move now, without anyone else knowing what she knew or that she knew it. That meant that they needed Morrie.
The stone giant was still staring out the window when he finally spoke, and it took her a moment to realize he was talking to her. "Two names. Fine. Time frame?"
She didn’t stop to wonder why he had finally agreed. She really didn’t care. "They got into town last week, ish. Address and all known info I got, you got. I need to know who they know, who they’re taking instructions from, who they’re meeting with, what makes them jump. And I need to know now."
"Now as in, this week, or…"
"Now as in, I’ll wait right here."
The giant grumbled at that. "You’re not staying anywhere near me while I work, lonejack. Like as not kill all my tech. Go into the kitchen and make yourself a sandwich. Put some flesh on those bones of yours. Humans, phagh. No idea how to stay healthy, all over too skinny and soft, like jellyfish." He flapped one thick-fingered hand at her. "Go, out of my sight."
His kitchen was as oversized as everything else, and just as empty of furnishings. Giants weren’t much on furniture, or any kind of normal-sized comfort. But there was a fresh-baked baguette in the bread-bag, and some kind of fish spread and half a dozen cheeses in the fridge, along with the makings of a green salad. No coffee or soda, but there was overly-tart lemonade that was surprisingly refreshing once she cut it with seltzer. By the time Morrie bellowed her name, Wren had managed to make a sizable dent in the food, and was feeling a post-gorge satiation. If this were a fairy tale, she thought sleepily, sitting on the floor with the remains of her meal spread out in front of her, the giant would be in the other room preparing a nice toasty fire to broil her on for his dinner.
She wondered, just as sleepily, if she should have told someone where she was going before she left the city, and if Sergei would find her bones or if Morrie would use them for toothpicks.
"Retriever! You want this information or not?"
She did.
©Laura Anne Gilman
And now I'm going to go stare at the tv for a while. If we're not all gone *poof* in the wee hours by a sudden black hole, I'll see y'all tomorrow.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 06:52 pm (UTC)