Joely Sue Burkhart

Hmm, well, what to share for this week?  I did finish Spires in time for the deadline, but I can’t share much of it while its under submission. 

You’ve already seen a good few sections of The Fire Within *mumble, which I still need to finish, mumble*. 

I must admit to starting a new project, but it’s maybe not so appropriate to share in a Friday Snippet.  *mumble, too sexy, mumble*

But I’m really happy with how Spires of Secrecy–Alien Goth–came out, so I’m going to share one more little piece.  Next week, I think I’ll switch to the Maya short story.

Spires, part 1

Spires closed in, forming a canyon of black rock and sculpted waves of pristine snow. No tracks. Nobody had come this way in ages. Above, the wind howled like a beast so loudly that she barely heard the voices. Feet numb and legs wobbling, she fell against the rock wall and edged closer, shivering uncontrollably.

Two men, one short and thin, the other more muscular and at least six feet tall as far as she could tell in the bulky long coats they wore. It was the tallest man’s voice she heard over the screaming gale. The other man gestured with his hand, a glint of gold catching her eye, and then he stomped off in the other direction.

The tall man stared down at something on the ground. Grimly, Amee noted the lump was roughly the shape of a body.

Another murder had already occurred. Another innocent life snuffed out, lost forever. Once again, she was too late.

Sick with guilt and impotent fury, she pushed away from the ice-slicked rock and forced her weary legs to carry her closer. She had to play the part, gather the evidence to convict him, and then she would kick in his damned head on the way to the brig. “Are you Dr. Linkyn?”

His head jerked up. Dark hair hung across his face, wildly blown by the wind, shaggy and unkempt. Brows drew a fierce slash across his forehead. Dark brown eyes bored into her. “Who the hell are you?”

“Amee Fallon of the Xenographic Society. How dare you treat me like one of your common little interns!”

His eyes flared and he stepped over the lump. Hands clenched at his sides, he took in her trademark red coat, the Society badge over her heart, and her deliberately snooty airs. A switch flipped, anger exploding like an enraged beast. “Son of a bitch. Your shuttle was not given permission to land. Lethe is my dig, my planet, and I say who comes in here and—“

Amee dropped her gaze to the lump behind him and shrieked. “Is that a body? A dead body?”

Instead of fainting like a proper Society member, though, she moved around Dr. Linkyn to get a closer look. Male, mid twenties, fit, a site worker by the look of his heavy duty books, coveralls and gloves. Based on the images she’d seen of the other bodies, it was the same M.O. His face twisted in violent pain, frozen solid but oddly charred. Parallel slashes of black marked his face, his chest, burning away his clothing. No blood despite the deep rivers carved into his abdomen. The wounds had been cauterized instantly.

Since no one off-planet had been allowed to examine the bodies, no one knew exactly what had killed them, let alone how. Theories ran toward Linkyn using some alien technology he discovered in the ruins. Technology he planned to keep for himself at all cost.

After seeing the vicious attack first hand, Amee thought they might be right. No manmade tech today could cut so deeply, cleanly, and cauterize at the same time. Surgeons would kill for this weapon, whatever it was.

Dr. Linkyn grabbed her arm and hauled her toward the sheer black rock wall. “You little fool. You’ll freeze to death out here and I’ll be blamed for yet another death. More questions, more Society thieves, more peace officers, all mucking around in my research. I won’t have it.”

It was hard to play the airhead when every instinct demanded she interrogate the prime murder suspect. Sliding into hypothermia helped. “A dead man! Dead! I came to see ruins, not dead people! Did you kill him?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Dr. Linkyn growled through gritted teeth. “You will get back on your shuttle and depart immediately.”

“Call the Federation, the Society, somebody, I—“

Halting, he jerked her against him and shook her so hard her teeth actually stopped chattering for a moment. “You won’t tell a bloody soul, do you hear me?”

Staring into his hard, cold eyes with his hands gripping her upper arms, she searched his gaze for any sign of dishonesty. His warmth felt incredible. Like a warm comfy quilt on a winter day. Damn, she was further gone than she thought. Amee decided to take a little gamble. “What will you give me?”

He blinked, his mouth tightening into a flat line. “What do you want?”

“I want an exclusive tour of your ruins. I want to select one artifact to return to the Society for study with co-authorship.”

Harshly, he laughed and started dragging her through the snow once more. “If you’ve done your research, then you know that I never co-author. Not even with my intern I failed to scare away so far.”

“You will if you want me to keep your dead body quiet. How many have died now? That’s why the Society sent me.”

“Damn filthy thieves.” He sneered at her red coat and released her arm to slide his hands over the rock wall. “They’re praying I get arrested or killed myself so they can steal my life’s work!”

She must be suffering from shock, because the flow of his hands was mesmerizing and oddly erotic. He stroked the rock lovingly, here, there, and finally, a panel slid open soundlessly to reveal a cave in the spire.

He pushed her inside none too gently. At the blessed warmth, tears trickled down her cheeks and she clutched her arms around herself, trying to stop shaking. The hollowed room was small, just a diameter of six feet or so, and lit with a gentle glow from no light source that she recognized. The walls were flat, smooth, plain rock; the floor, the same. Above, the spire disappeared into darkness.

Still muttering beneath his breath, he pressed more spots on the rock and a small control panel appeared. “You must leave immediately. It’s not safe. My research—“

He fell silent, staring at whatever he read on the small screen. Then he turned to her, his face devoid of emotion. “The shuttle is gone.”

She nodded, once, keeping her face equally impassive.

“There’s a storm coming in. Your ship can’t send the shuttle back.”

It took every single one of her many years of training to keep the small smirk from betraying her. “I’m stranded for days, at least.”

Despite her display of innocence, he still knew, if the flicker of emotion in his eyes was any indication. Now, she decided she must be hallucinating, because she thought it might have actually been admiration.

He took a step toward her, silent and grim, and the small room suddenly shrank. Her heart thundered and her stomach cramped. Her hand automatically twitched toward her hip, but she didn’t wear her service weapon. If he was the murderer—

With a punishing grip, he grabbed her, his face a mask. He tugged her coat off her shoulders, down her arms, pinning them at her side. Her pulse hammered inside her head like a jackhammer. For the first time in her life, she thought she might be suffering from shock. The extreme temperature changes, the murders, with a very likely suspect tugging at her clothes…

“Don’t you dare faint,” he growled, peeling her wet coat off. He pressed closer, driving her backward, stumbling, until she fell onto a carved seat in the wall. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. Had it?

Shivering so hard she ached all over, Amee wrapped her arms about herself and tried to look innocent and weak. The latter was alarmingly easy to portray. With her hair slicked to her face, steam rising up from her, her hands blue with cold, her condition was dangerous.

Dr. Linkyn continued a diatribe beneath his breath as he shrugged out of his waterproofed coat and dumped it around her shoulders. The heavy coat was wonderfully warm with his body heat. Drawing it around her, she caught the scent of alien dust and deeper, the scent of man. Warm, musky, rich on the tongue like mulled wine and just as intoxicating.

He returned to the panel in the wall, pressing buttons and muttering. When he stepped back to her, he hauled her to her feet, his grip rough but not hurting her. She doubted her trembling knees could have held her weight without his help. He wrapped his arms around her. Sluggish with shock, she didn’t resist until she realized he trapped her against the long, lean lines of his legs and the cage of his upper body.

Terror shrieked through her. She tried to jerk back, but she couldn’t break his grip.

Working her hand beneath his coat into the inner pocket of her smart Society jacket, she wrapped her fingers around the thin deceptively delicate blade. She’d kill him if she had to, but she’d much rather bring him to justice. She couldn’t bear for his victims’ faces to join the horde of innocents already haunting her.

He was certainly strong enough to murder. Without even breathing hard, he kept her arms pinned between them. Struggling only brought him tighter against her, his powerful thighs closing around her.

“Be still,” he said gruffly in her ear. “This won’t hurt. Much.”

A flash of light, heat singing through her, then darkness. The world tumbled away, whirling sickeningly. All that remained was a murderer’s arms around her, his scent in her face, his body trapping hers.

She clung to him in the void.

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