Phantom Pleasures - Prologue
Monday, March 24th, 2008
Hello, Plotmonkey readers! And to all the new readers linking here from the sites and blogs of my generous friends, WELCOME! It’s a party in the jungle!
This week starts something very exciting…every day, I will be posting a chapter from my book PHANTOM PLEASURES, which is officially released next week on April 1. That’s seven chapters! (Okay, six chapters and a prologue…but let’s not quibble.)
I wanted give everyone more than just a little excerpt…I want you to know, by the end of the week, if this is a book you will enjoy enough to buy–a book you’ll want to tell your friends about.
I’m also offering a chance for anyone who posts a comment or asks a question to win a $20 gift certificate from Amazon or Borders.com. I’ll pick a winner every day, but you’ll have to come back the next day to see if you’ve won. Regular jungle contest rules apply!
So today, I’m posting the Prologue. Don’t forget to click the “More” button to get the rest! Enjoy!
Austin, Texas
April 2008
His hand shaking, as much from age as from fear, Paschal Rousseau, noted Romani scholar, shut the door to his study and said a silent prayer for more time. He’d once thought he’d had more of that commodity than he could stand, but not any longer. His enemies were closing in on him. Of this, he was sure. He wouldn’t go without a fight, of course, but despite his best efforts to remain in good shape, ninety years did take its toll on a man. In the meantime, he had to bolster his arsenal with as much information as he could gather in the quickest, if most draining, way he knew how.
To that end, he had to act. He had to push through the final barrier of his mind and connect with the past.
Not his past. He knew his own history, his own wild tale that had led him here to the States to seek the objects he needed to counter the gypsy curse. No, tonight he had to attempt something more dangerous. He had to seek a path into the distant past–into memories that were not his.
Flicking on the lamp on his desk, he stared at the oil painting he’d propped onto the blotter, knowing it had been the artist’s last work. The purplish clouds scuttling across the top of the canvas raged with rain. The white-capped waves beneath the listing schooner sparked with anger and turmoil. Paschal had searched for this stormy seascape for years, learning more about the intricacies of art dealing than he’d ever intended. But he’d found the piece and now, it was time to use his so-called gift to take the final step.
He sat. Clutching the curved armrest of his chair with one hand, he reached out with the other and gingerly, traced the name of the artist, rendered in bold strokes across the bottom of the canvas. Damon. He concentrated on everything he knew about the man, closed his eyes and painted his own picture of the artist in his mind. The only other rendering of the man existed in a place Pascal could no longer reach. Luckily, though he’d lived a somewhat unnaturally long life, his memory remained strong and reliable.
Once he saw Damon’s dark hair, steely eyes and rigid jaw in his mind’s eye, Paschal spread his fingers and palm over the center of the painting. At first, he felt nothing but cool canvas and the stiff texture of dried enamels. But then, slowly, his hand seemed to meld into the painting. His flesh transparent. His mind transported.
The connection made, he pulled his mind’s eye out of the schooner in the gyrating ocean and concentrated on the night, over two hundred and sixty years ago, when the artist and his entire band of brothers disappeared forever.
