MESMER ...
the mysterious cat, daughter of Bast ...
She owns the strangest French Quarter restaurant you will ever visit -
As Victor Standish finds out in the beginning of his audiobook adventure coming in 21 days:
Until then listen to the FREE sample of RITES OF PASSAGE:
For The Desert Rocks,
here is a "mesmerizing" excerpt
(bloodless but filled with magic)
of Victor's first audiobook:
Victor is "paying" for his breakfast by sketching Mesmer in charcoal when she asks him to lean down to listen to her:
Suze was
busily wolfing down her breakfast of steak and eggs. Me? I
was in the midst of earning my breakfast.
I had a fine stretched canvas on the table in front of me, busily
stroking it in flashes of mystery and power.
Mesmer was sitting staring at me, the secrets of the ages seeming to
burn deep inside her amber eyes as she watched me.
The
restaurant was what a Victorian hooker on Meth would have imagined Wild Bill
Hickok’s bar in Deadwood to have looked.
A dark, smoky haze kept the surroundings half-hidden. I didn’t care. I just added it to the sketch.
I saw a
flash of long, lovely legs in the twilight of the restaurant.
I looked up.
A young woman with a guitar, snug top, and short shorts began to sing in
a British accent. The phrase “RAGS AND BONES” kept being repeated so I
figured that was the name of the song.
Suze eyed
me. “Ain’t Thea Gilmore a mite old for a
young one like you?”
I winked at
her. “I have a thing for older women.”
Mesmer
yowled, and Suze went pale, saying, “She said considering your future that is
good.”
I
shrugged. “The future is the
future. I live in the moment. I mean everything changes so enjoy what won’t
last while you have it.”
Mesmer
arched on her hind legs, placing her front paws on the table, and scaring the
ever-living snot out of me, she purred in soft English:
“Some
things will never change. Some things will always be the same. Lean down your
ear, boy-man, and listen.”
I tucked
the charcoal away in my shirt pocket, placed the canvas beside my chair, and
leaned down to her fanged mouth.
“The voice
of the forest in the night, a panther's laughter in the dark, the rattle of
raked claws through gravel, the chattering chorus of crickets in hot meadows, the
delicate ballet of butterflies --these things will never change.”
Mesmer’s
eyes seemed to swallow my world. “The
sun striking fire along ragged sea waves, the glory of the stars, the promise
of dawn, the scent of the ocean at even tide, the thorn of spring, the sharp
and tongueless cry of winter winds--these things will always be the same.”
Mesmer
growled low, “The adder, the hawk, and the wolf will also never change. Pain
and death will always contest for the soul.
But under the sidewalks trembling like a female in childbirth, under Man’s
buildings trembling like a newborn, under the waste of time, under the hoof of
the beast above the broken bones of soulless cities, there will be something
flowing like a river, something bursting from the earth again, forever
deathless, faithful, coming into life again like love in a cemetery.”
Mesmer sat
back down, and I said, “Well, I’m glad one of us understood that.”
Suze
rasped, “What did Mesmer say, Victor?”
“You didn’t
hear her?”
She shook
her head. “Only a strange yowling. What did Mesmer say?”
I made a
face. “Ah, the Cliff Notes version is
that I don’t know squat.”
***
Eve, I hope you enjoyed that -- and all you other friends! :-)
THIS JUST IN!
THE DEATH OF VICTOR STANDISH
END OF DAYS
has just been released in audiobook form!!
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