FREE
to 1 May
New York: Allie's War, Early Years
by JC
Andrijeski
New York: Allie's War, Early Years is a prequel novel in JC Andrijeski's Allie's War series. An urban fantasy new
adult romance set in a unique, gritty version of Earth, populated by a second
race of psychic beings called Seers, the Allie's
War series centers on the relationship of a strong female protagonist,
Allie Taylor, and her antihero guide, Dehgoies Revik. The series takes place in
a modern version of our world just prior to the apocalypse and a dystopian
future, and spans centuries along with the lives of its main characters, the Seers,
and the wars they fight with themselves and their human allies and enemies. (Appropriate
for ages 16 and up - steamy sex scenes in parts!)
The books in order:
Rook: Allie's War, Book One (FREE on Smashwords
to 8 March)
Shield: Allie's War, Book Two (FREE on Smashwords
to 8 March)
New York: Allie's War, Early Years (#3.5) (currently FREE on Smashwords,
B&N,
and Amazon)
Revik: Allie's War, Early Years (#6.5) (FREE on Smashwords
to 8 March)
Description
Allie calls it her New York jinx. Already on this trip, obnoxious band
groupies hang all over her boyfriend, a stalker leaves her cryptic and creepy
notes, and she nearly gets arrested watching a Seer get tasered by cops who act
like not-cops. One of them, a tall, black-haired guy with strangely colorless
eyes, keeps showing up everywhere Allie goes.
But when a religious cult targets Allie for an end of the world ritual,
her visit goes from annoying to quite probably fatal.
Excerpt
She watched him, her
eyes riveted on the way he moved, the confident, almost heavy gait that still
managed to be strangely feline as he walked at the back end of the auditorium.
A faint sheen of sweat covered his face and neck, as it did pretty much
everyone else in the room, herself included, despite how hard the fans worked
in grating, circular motions over their heads.
Kali had been
looking for him for months...years.
It was strange to be
finally faced with him, and somewhat disconcerting. She was one of the few
people alive who knew what he truly was, underneath that expressionless mask.
He seemed young to
her still, despite what his life had encompassed already.
He was young, from Kali’s perspective,
although she knew he might not feel it, nor would he appreciate her pointing
out that fact to his face. Like most male seers, he was likely sensitive about
his age. They all were, it seemed, when it came to the opposite sex. Male seers
never seemed to get their stride with their sexual confidence until they’d hit
the two or three hundred mark, at least, and Kali doubted, somehow, that he
would be any different, despite who he was.
Kali used her sight
to memorize every line of him, every structure and taste of his light, in the
event he managed to lose her again before she got up the nerve to approach
him...and before she determined a way to do so without him merely attempting to
kill her for her troubles.
At roughly
eighty-years-old, he had reached most of his adult height. Tall, even for a
seer, like his father...perhaps 6’5” or 6’6”, utilizing human measurements.
Despite her perception of his light, he looked old for his age, she
noticed...physically, that is. Perhaps it had been the content of those
eighty-odd years, but his face had a harder cast than most seers who have lived
so long, she thought.
To the humans, he
would look perhaps thirty.
Not older than
thirty-five.
Not younger than
twenty-seven or twenty-eight.
His black hair hung
down in a ragged line, partly in his eyes now. Those same eyes shone in the
dingy overhead lights, an indiscriminate pale that was almost completely
colorless as he continued to case the room. The long hair fit the style of the
current human fashion, of course, although he was clean-shaven, unlike many
male humans in his rough age-bracket. Since he was blending with and passing as
human, however, it didn’t surprise her that he chose to let his hair grow out.
Even so, she couldn’t
help noticing that, on him at least, the longer hair still managed to make him
look more warlike than the scraggly, softer look of the human ‘hippie’
contingent. Part of that might have been the lack of facial hair, and the hard,
almost sharp planes of his face without anything to soften those lines, but
Kali suspected that wasn’t all of it.
In the same way, the
longer hair somehow made him appear more seer than not. Perhaps it simply
contrasted too strongly with those same angular lines of his narrow face.
He wasn’t a handsome
man, really.
His features fit
together too inharmoniously for that. His large eyes stared, lamp-like from
that tanned skin above the high cheekbones and a not-small nose. His narrow
mouth formed a firm line above an even more firm and distinctive jaw.
He was attractive
though, in his way. The strange silver lights Kali could see obscuring and
darkening his aleimi took away from that attractiveness for her, but she knew
the intensity of those same lights would undoubtedly have the opposite effect
on others.
Even now, she saw
the eyes of human females noticing him.
A European reporter
did a double-take on his face and then his lean, broad-shouldered body,
measuring him with an openly appraising stare. Without seeming to know she’d
done it, she wet her lips as she continued to look at him, her pupils dilating
slightly as she once more flickered her gaze over him in his worn jeans and
leather belt. The thin, black t-shirt he wore stuck to the lean muscles of his
chest with sweat, making a dark mark from his neckline to about his sternum.
He wore a jacket,
too, despite the suffocating heat, a thin leather sheath which told Kali he had
at least one gun strapped to his side, if not more than one.
For his part, he
barely seemed to notice the reporter, although Kali saw him return the
appraisal in a furtive kind of rote, staring briefly at the human’s bare legs
and noting the lack of a bra before he went back to taking the measurements of
the room. As his mind returned to work, he slid back into the blank, work-face
mask of a trained infiltrator, Kali noticed.
He disappeared
inside that mask, and then back into the crowd, too, melting away from her view
as he continued his ghost-like walk around the perimeter.
It unnerved her,
even without her knowing why he was there, not precisely.
The year was 1974.
Nixon had just
resigned as President of the United States in the wake of one of the worst
political scandals of the Twentieth Century...at least that didn’t result in
out-and-out war, apart from the wars that already raged in Asia. The war in
Vietnam continued, seemingly without end, and now the Soviets were involved,
too...although the United States had finally diminished their presence on the
continent, preferring to throw money at the South Vietnamese army, instead.
Standing at a press
conference in downtown Saigon itself, in a basement meeting hall down the
street from the famous Caravelle Hotel, Kali felt old suddenly, in a way she
hadn’t as long as she’d been alive. She’d finally found him.
The man who would be
her unborn daughter’s mate.
Even with what she
knew, Kali found the thought chilling.
Review
Short story? Nope. Amazing prequel that's a story all by itself. This
baby's a novella - over 100 pages - and if you've read any of JC Andrijeski's Allie's War series, you'll slide right
into this little number, and you will love it.
If you haven't read any of the Allie's
War series, this story is a perfect introduction. Don't hesitate - take a
leap. This series (and this writer) will quickly become a favorite.
About the Author
JC Andrijeski has published novels, novellas, serials, graphic novels and
short stories, including new adult fantasy series, Allie's War, the new adult science fiction series, The Slave Girl Chronicles, and the Gate-Shifters
series, about a shape-shifting alien and a tough-girl PI from Seattle. She also
writes nonfiction essays and articles, as well as some erotica. Her short works
have been featured in anthologies, online literary, art and fiction magazines
as well as print venues such as NY Press newspaper and holistic health
magazines. JC travels extensively and has lived abroad in Europe, Australia and
Asia, but currently lives and works full time as a writer in Portland, Oregon.
Links
