River Walk

July 28, 2012

Having a new book come out is a great way to cap off a very busy month. RIVER WALK is the third book in the Sundown series. And if there's one thing to remember about Sundown, it's never ask a shapeshifter a question unless you're ready for the answer. 

RIVER WALK
Gay romance with paranormal shift
available now at Amazon

Book three of the Sundown series

Detective Fallon Roxbury has a big problem. A twenty-year old cold case turned hot threatens to expose his secret - shapeshifters exist and they’re living in Montgomery Circle under his protection. Between a new witness and a group of fanatical alien watchers, Fallon’s scrambling to uphold the law and keep his promises intact. He already knows no power on earth can keep his shapeshifter lover from stepping into the mix.   

Sundown has come into his own with his human lover by his side. Fallon is his compass, and shield, as he seeks to keep his Clan united and teach them most humans can be trusted. A catalyst, Sundown is rare among his kind, a descendant of heroes. The status of his Clan rests on him and he’s determined to see his people prosper on this world owned by humans - without the humans knowing shapeshifters walk among them. 

Secrets have a way of being exposed. Fallon’s not the only one who knows about Sundown’s kind. A cop used to right and wrong being black and white, Fallon struggles to learn shades of gray. Their relationship is tested as Fallon and Sundown race against the clock to find a kidnapped shapeshifter before the Clan takes matters into their own hands.  Because if they fail, Fallon knows his lover will be forced to stand with his people and act against him.  

INTRO

“So when do you teach me how to change shape?”

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Fallon, wearing a different skin is not possible for you.” Sundown blinked rapidly, looking more and more shocked. “You would wish it?”

I shook my head. “No, I do not wish it for myself. It’s not normal for a human, Sundown. Come sit on the couch with me.”

I picked up my coffee cup and eased down on the brightly colored scarves covering his sofa. I loved his room with its red and gold brocades, bead curtains, and bright cloths. It made me nostalgic for the days of Woodstock even though I’d not been born until nine months after the Summer of Love changed the world. I lifted my arm and Sundown nestled in against my side. 

“Are you angry with me, Fallon?”

Was I? Some inner knowledge assured me he’d not harmed me in any way.

“I’m concerned. That’s different. What happens if I get hurt and some doctor discovers weird little cells dancing around inside me?”

Sundown sipped his coffee. He licked his full lips and took another drink. He was trying to stall me in the hopes I’d ask something else and give him the opportunity to bypass giving me an answer. I wasn’t going to allow him to get away with such a ploy, not this time. I waited. Sundown finally sighed. 

“It hasn’t happened yet, Fallon.”

His answer didn’t surprise me. The Chal used every means at their disposal to protect themselves and the clan, whether or not we humans would approve their actions. 

“Here’s a news flash for you, lover. Forensic medicine has come a long way in a short time, and it’s possible today’s technology can detect those cells now.”

Sundown sat up straight and twisted to stare at me. I saw Czun Dun Nhunfi, the pride of his clan, before me. His quick intelligence absorbed the information, considered the ramifications, and developed options. I stroked his smooth cheek with my knuckles, and gave his words back to him, gently.

“It hasn’t happened yet, darling. How many humans have you done this to?”

His chin lifted. “You once accused me of using you as my science project. In this, you’re correct. The knowledge handed down to me said it was indeed possible to blend with a human in this way and thus know their thoughts. I needed to know if this were true.”

“You’re avoiding giving me a number, Czun Dun Nhunfi.”

“What was handed down said it was possible for those like me. My ancestors who were catalysts did this to gain knowledge of their captors. It is said without doing this, the Chal could not have escaped slavery on this world thousands of years ago.”

If the folks at SETI only knew how right they were – and how late they were to the game. 

EXCERPT:

“Many years ago, when I was a mere nestling and thus had no part in it, the Chal erred.”

I gnawed on a knuckle to keep from laughing at his apparent need to cover his ass over whatever the hell had happened. It wasn’t very respectful on my part, but I couldn’t help it. I pulled myself together and spoke formally to alleviate his concerns.

“I do not blame you for the actions of others, Czun Dun Nhunfi. Nor do I seek to impose sanctions over honest mistakes. Please, continue.”

“This reassures me, Fallon. And I forgive you your humor as you know me so well.” He leaned over and kissed between my shoulder blades. “It happened at Madison Park, along the river walk.”

“Oh, shit!” I rolled up and dumped him off me. Juny’s cold case file. He knew about it through me. “Either someone thinks they killed a Chal, or they really did manage to off one of you, and the Chal removed the body. Or the Chal killed a human and removed the body.”

“Why do you suspect this?” He blinked at me, rapidly, several times.

“I’m guessing because of what Juny told me this afternoon.”

“Wsie emu.”

Oh, fuck was right. I waved my hand in front of his glazed expression. “I told you, Sundown. Juny knows things. He’s got his hands on a cold case. This one.”

“Beir wsie qite emu tagu.”

I’d been with him long enough to learn a few words and phrases and knew the Chal words he uttered translated roughly to “can it get fucking worse?” I watched him square his shoulders. He was about to attempt damage control, but it was too late. I was a cop. I was trained to extrapolate facts and form theories, and I had. 

“Yeah. What you said.”

“Very well, Fallon. I have not yet advised the Elders, but we will speak. The Chal are involved, but not because one was killed, or died. Some twenty or so of your years ago, Timothy Petrie witnessed a group of young Chal playing in Madison Park.”

Cold shock slammed my system. I’d arrested Petrie for the brutal murder of two young men and in the process Petrie dealt a blow rendering me deaf in my right ear. It was also the case where I’d met Sundown.

Petrie spun a fanatical tale of shapeshifters living among humans to anyone who’d listen, and one who had was Juny Mack. My temper spiked and I grabbed his arms.

“You should have told me this a long time ago, Sundown. The Chal had Petrie under surveillance for years, didn’t they? Something drove him to kill Michael Carlton and Allen Young. Was it some action of the Chal?”

His surprise at the strength of my grip on him gave way to anger. “I did nothing wrong! I put myself at great risk to resolve the situation, so much so the Elders discussed what needed to be done about you!”

I washed cold again, a second icy blast which quickly chilled my blood and sent my pulse racing.

“Are you telling me the Elders wanted me away from you so badly the discussed ‘removing’ me?”

Fear flickered in his emerald eyes. “Fallon. We must move on from this. The Elders did what they thought needed to be done to contain Timothy Petrie, and ultimately failed. They bear the guilt of this.”

His panic seeped into me through our connection. It was a blinding white light inside him but I couldn’t back off, not this time. He’d withheld important information from me time and time again, and it had to stop. 

“I seek the truth, Czun Dun Nhunfi. The truth the Chal, and you, work so hard to hide.”

“We do what we must to protect ourselves. Selisei, please. Please.”

Beloved. Selisei. Had he played me for a fool? He gave me the hottest sex of my life. Had it blinded me to his real agenda? 

“Tell me what happened in Madison Park and do not - do not - leave anything out.” I gave him a shake then released him. 

Sundown stared at me. “Will you confide in me, Fallon? What does Sergeant Mack know of the Chal?”

I very carefully pictured a high, wide brick wall around my brain. “First things first. Now you talk, and I’ll consider what you should learn when you’re finished.”

He gave me a look full of cautious speculation. Did it say the barrier I’d erected worked? Something surprised him. He’d expected to be able to read my mind - and for me to waver because I always had before. Sundown arranged the pillows and beckoned to me to come to him.

We were as far apart from each other as we’d ever been since we met. Maybe he had it right and we needed to touch to find our way back from our sudden anger and mistrust. I nodded, eased down beside him. We shifted positions until we lay face-to-face. I offered him my hand and he slipped his palm beneath mine.  

“Start talking.”

RIVER WALK

Gay romance with paranormal shift
available now at Amazon
www.amazon.com/River-Walk-Sundown-Saga-Book-ebook/dp/B01F7LMN8S

Book three of the Sundown series

KC Kendricks
website at: http://www.kckendricks.com/
blog: http://www.kckendricks.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kckendricks
mailing list at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/betweenthekeys

Independence Day - The Declaration of Independence

July 4, 2012

Of all the things I could post today, this seemed the most appropriate.-KC

*_*_*_*_*

  

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

From http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

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IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1

Georgia:

   Button Gwinnett

   Lyman Hall

   George Walton

Column 2

North Carolina:

   William Hooper

   Joseph Hewes

   John Penn

South Carolina:

   Edward Rutledge

   Thomas Heyward, Jr.

   Thomas Lynch, Jr.

   Arthur Middleton

Column 3

Massachusetts:

John Hancock

Maryland:

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton

Column 4

Pennsylvania:

   Robert Morris

   Benjamin Rush

   Benjamin Franklin

   John Morton

   George Clymer

   James Smith

   George Taylor

   James Wilson

   George Ross

Delaware:

   Caesar Rodney

   George Read

   Thomas McKean

Column 5

New York:

   William Floyd

   Philip Livingston

   Francis Lewis

   Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

   Richard Stockton

   John Witherspoon

   Francis Hopkinson

   John Hart

   Abraham Clark

Column 6

New Hampshire:

   Josiah Bartlett

   William Whipple

Massachusetts:

   Samuel Adams

   John Adams

   Robert Treat Paine

   Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

   Stephen Hopkins

   William Ellery

Connecticut:

   Roger Sherman

   Samuel Huntington

   William Williams

   Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire:

   Matthew Thornton

Greeting July and Catching Up

July 1, 2012

I finally updated my website this morning. The Kendricks’ household has the worst DSL connection in the State of Maryland. Way to fucking go, Verizon, your service sucks. Our only other option is satellite, which, oh by the way, sucks worse. But I digress.

Arising early this Sunday morning - early being FIVE AM - I was able to actually publish updates to the website without the DSL cutting out and crashing the entire site. I suppose no one else in the county was up that early sucking away the bandwidth, because I didn’t have any problems. Hmmmm. Still digressing.

What can I say? Paying for services I can’t use on my terms pisses me off.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Website updates. New pages are up and/or under construction.

There are a couple of upcoming items in my world I need to start telling folks about. First up is To Hear You Sigh, a two-story paperback compilation with A Cat Named Hercules and Leather Jackets. As my paperbacks are available through Amazon, it’s a guess as to when it will be available, but it should be sometime soon. (To Hear You Sigh is out of print due to the closing of Amber Quill Press.)

Secondly, and more importantly, River Walk, the third installment of the Sundown saga will be available near the end of July. Fallon learns a lot more about Sundown’s people, maybe more than he wanted, and puts his and Juny’s careers on the line to save a kidnapped Chal nestling. And of course, Sundown has Fallon ready to pull his hair out over the things he does. Being a shapeshifter, Sundown sees the world a different way. River Walk is a longer story and will also be available in paperback.

A question often asked is, “What are you working on?”  The short answer is…LOTS!!

Sundown book IV - Our shapeshifter needs a vacation so Fallon agrees for a weekend away. Mischief follows.

Amethyst Cove II - Our PI Ian Coulter has to find a stalker and while Rick might be physically gone from town for now, Ian still has his phone number.

Doors of Time - I’m not sure what to say about this one. I started it for an Amber Allure PAX entitled “That Old Gang of Mine” in which boyhood friends reconnect. Suddenly the powers that be think the word “gang” has too many evil connotations. It may not end up where it was headed, which is part of the PAX. If the title of the PAX gets changed, it likely won’t fit at all with all the “old gang” references my guys make.

Untitled - where an “older” man is pursued by a “younger” man. It’s not the May/December thing, but the language is limiting sometimes. One guy is older than the other by more than a few years but not enough to make it strange. No biggie.

And so it goes, Sunday, July 1, 2012. I’m off to take my dog down to play in the creek before he heads that way without me. Why should he have all the fun on a hot afternoon?

KC Kendricks

website: http://www.kckendricks.com