Angela Benedetti

My urban fantasy novel A Hidden Magic has been released and is available through my publisher’s site. I’m sitting here vibrating with excitement, with this ridiculously huge smile on my face.

Oh, and they used the blurb I wrote and the excerpt I chose when I did my marketing doc, which is pretty cool. Unless you don’t like it, of course, in which case it’s all my fault, but there you go — nothing’s completely perfect, right?

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Fey incursions into the mortal world have been on the rise, and Paul MacAllister’s trying to figure out what the king of the local Elven enclave Under the Hill is up to and how to stop it. Rory Ellison was caught up in one of those attacks and nearly killed by a gang of goblins. He doesn’t believe they were real, though, and is resisting anything Paul might say to the contrary.

Normally Paul would be willing to let Rory go his own way, at least until he’s taken care of more immediate business. But Rory has a particularly rare gift, one the Elven king needs to have under his control in order to carry out his plan. Keeping Rory away from the fey who will use him, to death if necessary, means protecting him night and day, whether Rory agrees or not.

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The rushing of the water and the squawk-twitter of the birds were soothing, almost hypnotic. The breeze blowing across the small river was cool; it felt good on Rory’s overheated skin and it smelled like green. It was a wonderful place to rest, but it was time to move. He opened his eyes and tried to stand up… and couldn’t.

He tried again with no better luck. He was stuck to the bench.

“Damn! Aren’t they supposed to put up signs when they paint?” Resigned to being a total mess, he put his hand down on the seat for leverage, but it didn’t help. And then he couldn’t move his hand. “What the–? It couldn’t have dried that fast!”

Then he remembered he’d brushed leaves off the bench before sitting; it hadn’t been wet then, or sticky with anything. He tugged at his hand but it was stuck tight and pulling just hurt.

“Got a problem, sweet thing?” A screechy, smarmy-sounding voice squawked directly into his ear, and Rory whipped his head around while jerking as far away as he could. Hanging off the back of the bench and grinning at him with far too many teeth was a scrawny creature the size of a small, scrawny teenager, with scraggly hair and round, yellow eyes. The backwards baseball cap, multiple pendants, baggy basketball shirt, and shorts that dragged nearly to his ankles said “juvenile hoodlum,” but the pitted, gray-green skin and the drooping points on the ears had Rory in a panicked freeze.

It’s not real. It’s not, I’m imagining it, it’s not real and it can’t hurt me unless I think it can unless I want it to it’s not….

“Umm, this one smells tasty!” cooed another voice. Rory forced himself to look. It (she?) was a grayish purple and had the longest tongue he’d ever seen outside of a cartoon. Her hungry expression wasn’t at all funny, though; it was pure menace, and the rough, pointed tongue-tip which rasped its way up his cheek burned like acid.

A pair of gray-orange hands appeared from behind him, one wrapping itself around his throat while the other slid around his forehead and braced. He couldn’t move, and there were more of them, whatever they were, scooting and slithering around him, climbing up onto the bench and perching in his lap, hanging off his arms, rubbing and pinching and tasting. He couldn’t move and his vision was blurring and darkening as they pressed in around him, tugging at his clothes, touching and licking any skin they uncovered. He couldn’t move and all he could do was open his mouth to scream, but a long, dripping tongue slid inside and he couldn’t make a sound.

Rory struggled instinctively at first, fighting the gripping fingers and burning tongues, but then he forced himself to relax. It’s just an episode, he reminded himself. They’re creations of a misfiring brain. They’re not there, they’re not real, they can’t hurt you, relax….

He closed his eyes and let his muscles go slack, one set at a time as his doctor had taught him, while regulating his breathing. He pulled his awareness inward and focused on feeling the air rushing in through his nose and down to his lungs, filling them. He felt his heart beating, focusing his perceptions down into his own body until each lub-dub sent out a shockwave he could feel shuddering through his entire torso.

Suddenly a nasal voice screeched into his ear, “You can’t hide from us!” and the creature straddling his lap sank her teeth into his shoulder. Rory screamed and jerked, trying to throw her off, but he could barely move between the skinny arms clutching at him and whatever it was that held him to the bench.

Nothing! There was nothing holding him but his own imaginings. He fought to relax and focus but “nothing” yanked his head back by the hair and plunged her caustic tongue back into his throat, so deep he thought she’d taste the coffee he’d had on the way to the bus stop. He gagged and his stomach tried to expell the irritant but he couldn’t move and she wouldn’t stop and he tasted bile and couldn’t help gagging and then it was much easier to relax because he felt himself fading and slowing and everything went fuzzy and smeary and then dark.

***

Paul plunged through the hole in the air as soon as Aubrey stepped back and nodded. He took off from hardwood and landed on packed dirt, near a particular curving bank on the Guadalupe River, which ran through the heart of San Jose. Paul came out with a Don’t-Look on him, which Cal had cast on the group while Aubrey worked on the Port. A quick look around spotted both the mob of goblins feeding at a bench a dozen yards away, and the fact that there was no one else nearby. Excellent — he wouldn’t have to waste time or energy distracting onlookers or hiding any fireworks.

He stepped clear, his focus now on the goblins, and the others immediately followed one by one. They formed up on Paul and ran toward the goblin mob, yelling and waving cold iron weapons, hoping to at least startle the things off their victim.

The goblins swarmed like starving hyenas around a corpse, which was an unfortunate mental image just then. He heard Manny call, “Alive, but fading!” the tension grating in his voice.

Paul pulled his screwdriver out of a pocket inside his jacket and moved forward with Cal right behind him. Aubrey was prepping a banishing spell, but they needed to get the vermin off of Manny’s friend now, not two minutes from now, and cold iron would get their attention nicely.

Cal moved up next to him, his favorite physical weapons against the fey — a pair of heavy wrenches — already in hand. Manny, on his other side, had his crowbar in both hands; pure iron, it was particularly effective.

Paul descended on the gang of goblins, the other two flanking him, and a moment later they laid into the creatures, stabbing and bashing and yanking them off their victim.

Magic sprayed like blood wherever their weapons hit. The goblins screeched and cursed and turned on them in a furious pack. Teeth snapped, claws slashed and curses stung, but each swing or thrust of a cold iron weapon sent a goblin shrieking and scrambling out of range, away from the bench and the pale, limp body draped across it.

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Get the whole thing here.

I just had a new story released, “Boarding Action,” in the pirate themed anthology Walk the Plank.

Walk the Plank is a Taste Test, a short anthology with three stories all on a theme. Short stories sold alone cost $1.29; Taste Tests have three and sell for $2.49, so it’s a little better than getting one free.

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Cam and his friends plan a pirate themed prank to play on their friend Marsha Donovan and her father. They dress up and go out in their motorboat with their pirate costumes, plastic swords and water guns, hoping to stage a fun, fake pirate attack on the Donovans’ yacht, then spend the afternoon swimming and cruising. Of course it all goes wrong, and Cam’s friends bail on him, leaving him to face an angry — but hot — man with a gun who wants to know just WTF he thought he was doing.

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Cam had been out with Marcia’s family on their boat a few times and knew where they usually went. There was a series of beaches up the coast where Mr. Donovan liked to anchor and fish. They cruised by, keeping an eye out for the distinctive white hull, but didn’t have any luck. Next, Cam directed David out to a cluster of islands Marcia liked; the tiny beaches there were quieter than the mainland, and sometimes she could persuade her dad to go there, even thought the fishing wasn’t as good.

They cruised around the wooded islands for half an hour or so, then Ted yelled, “There! Hah! Gear up, me hearties!”

Cam snickered and made sure his head scarf was straight, then dug his hat out from behind the cooler where he’d stuck it to keep it from blowing overboard or getting stepped on. David aimed the go-fast right for the Donovans’ yacht and the other three all pulled their plastic swords and waved them around, smacking each other a few times in the process.

He happened to be on the right side of the boat when David pulled up to the swim platform at the stern of the anchored yacht, so Cam was the first off. He hopped over while Ted bellowed from behind him, “Ho the yacht! Come out with yer hands in the air and bring yer valuables, arrr!”

Idiot, Cam thought with a grin and a smirk. He scrambled up the ladder with his plastic sword still in his hand, then heard the approaching patter of feet. Bare feet, and coming a lot faster than Mr. Donovan — who was pushing three hundred pounds if he was an ounce — could possibly manage without falling over with a heart attack. Hah, it had to be Marcia!

Facing the far corner of the cabin, Cam dropped his sword and leveled his water-uzi at the place where his friend would appear. Ted appeared on the ladder behind him with his own water gun in hand, and Stone and David piled up behind him.

Cam turned to give his friends a grin, then looked back toward the far corner just as a blond figure came dashing into view. He stepped forward and yelled, “Hey, Marcia!” and let loose with a stream of water just as the newcomer aimed a gun right between his eyes. The blond — who was definitely not Marcia — yelled, “Fuck!” just as Cam yelped in fear and ducked. He heard an explosion right next to his head and dropped down onto the deck, curled up in a ball with his hands over his ears.

A blast of swearing drifted around him, with drumming footsteps, a slightly more distant thump! splat! thump! and then the roar of an engine zooming away.

Cam’s heart was banging away double-time; he could feel it slamming into his ribs and his breath was coming in short, panting puffs around it. All he could think of was that they’d made a mistake, that this wasn’t the Selkie and they’d played pirate-attack on some stranger’s yacht two weeks after another boat had been attacked and the pissed-off owner was going to shoot him and dump his body onto the pier for the harbor police and if he ever got his hands on Ted he was going to strangle the idiot, and then himself for going along with such a half-assed–

Someone kicked him in the thigh and snapped, “Get the fuck up! Who are you and what the hell were you doing?”

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Also included in the book are “Canons and Honor” by PD Singer, and “Life on the Ocean Wave” by Mara Ismine. Get the whole thing here!

I just had a new short story released, In the Driver’s Seat.

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Brian is used to being in control in the bedroom, but somehow he’s found himself without anyone to play with. Then he runs into recently-returned — and surprisingly grown-up — Val, who he knew years before as a cute high-school kid. Val’s not a high-school kid anymore, though, and there’s an air about him that says he’s been around and has had a few lessons in the bedroom.
Brian’s eager to provide some advanced schooling, but his assumptions end up getting him into trouble. To his own surprise, he finds it’s a kind of trouble he’s not all that eager to escape.

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Brian Stokes gave a rueful wave to his sometime fuck-buddy, Tom, who was being dragged out the door of the Banner Street Gym — and without even a chance to shower — by his new boyfriend, Alan or Alex or Aaron or something like that. Brian blew a kiss to Tom’s slightly hunched and retreating back, flipped the bird at the evil glare whatever-his-name was aiming at Brian over his shoulder, then stepped over to the desk with a pitiful sigh and started sorting through the box of member cards, looking for his own workout record.

Kelsie, the desk clerk, gave him a look of exaggerated pity, all puppy eyes and trembling lower lip, then dropped the act and giggled at him. “What’s the matter, Bri? Left dating your hand again?”

“I’ll have you know I never date my hand,” Brian replied with a sniff and an arched eyebrow. “I just fuck it occasionally and then roll over and go to sleep.”

“So you treat it just like everyone else, then,” said Kelsie.

Brian opened his eyes wide and pressed one hand to his chest in exaggerated pain. “Kelsie! What’d I ever do to you?”

“Nothing, unfortunately. I’d even go for one of your one-nighters,” she added, giving him an appreciative down-and-up look, “but you won’t even throw me that much of a bone.”

“Sorry, honey — incompatible equipment.” Brian leaned both elbows on the counter and gave her an apologetic smile. “If I swung that way, I promise you’re the first woman I’d grab.”

Kelsie managed to eyeroll and giggle simultaneously.

Contrary to popular opinion, Brian actually preferred having someone regular to tackle into bed. Not necessarily something as formal as a “lover” — he liked some variety occasionally and official lovers tended to think about relationships and monogamy and all that — but someone who liked to play the same games, someone he could get used to and who’d get used to him, to learn each other’s spots and tells and noises and expressions.

He and Tom had had that, the familiarity that comes with experience, when you’d had sex with the same person often enough that you just knew what they needed and how much was almost too much and what that little gasp meant. Tom had known everything about Brian, too, and they’d had a lot of good times together, even a few threesomes with some random hot guy they’d pick up at a bar for the night. It’d been great, just enough without being too much, at least in Brian’s opinion. Tom had disagreed, though, after twenty really awesome months. Or at least, what Brian had thought’d been really awesome.

Guess not.

Whatever.

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Get the whole thing here!

I just realized I never posted a link to my Halloween story. Torquere’s Halloween Blitz was published on October 30th this year — I couldn’t get a reliable connection from the ship, then afterward I just didn’t think about it. :/

Mine is Candy Courage. Glenn Bellamy, a divorced dad, is taking his son around trick-or-treating. He confiscates some homemade peanut brittle — and eats it himself of course — not knowing that the old man who made it is an alchemist who adds something special to his candy each year. This year it was Courage, so when Glenn and his son hit Neal Sampson’s house, Glenn finds himself flirting and making a date for the next day. Will the candy courage wear off, or will Glenn find the guts to go after what he wants?

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Sebastiano Fiorentelli studied the calendar — a freebie from the Humane Society with photos of puppies and kittens on it — on the wall of his cluttered basement laboratory and observed that it was the thirtieth day of October. Since emigrating to the United States and discovering the Halloween custom of sending children around to beg for treats, he’d made a habit of including something extra in the candy he made for the occasion each year. By the Nineteen-seventies, when hysteria over poison and razor blades swept the population, Mr. Fiorentelli had been living in his San Jose neighborhood long enough that no one fussed about letting their children eat his wax-paper-wrapped candies.

He paced back and forth in front of open cabinets and crowded shelves, pondering what to make this year, until finally he stopped and nodded.

“Courage,” he said. “This year, I think I’ll make courage…”

***

The next evening, Robbie Matheson, age eight, refused to share the wax-wrapped peanut brittle he’d gotten from old Mr. Fiorentelli on the corner. His real favorite candy was those little Milky Way bars, but Mr. Fiorentelli made some pretty cool candy and he always knew he had to eat it as soon as he could or his mom would sneak it.

Ten minutes later, he stood in his room and stared out the window into the dark back yard at the trampoline cage. His big sister Stephanie had been bouncing in it since she was five and had been teasing Robbie for being a scaredy-cat for the last three years, because no matter how his sister had taunted or his parents had coaxed or his friends had snickered, he’d refused to even stand on the trampoline.

Robbie knew — really knew — that he couldn’t get hurt in the cage unless he landed on his head or something. Just bouncing up and down without trying any flips or anything was perfectly safe. He knew that.

Of course he knew that.

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Get the whole thing here.

Angie

Lowell is an anthropologist, working with the Enknopans, studying their culture and ways. They haven’t completely accepted him, so he’s not invited to their year changing celebration. He decides to show his very good Enknopan friend Tiklup some of his own Christmas traditions, but things don’t work out exactly as planned. Can he still have a happy holiday?

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Well, ho fucking ho, Lowell thought, shifting one more time in the barely-too-tight smoke hole. He knew it was useless; he’d been wedged in for over an hour and a half and all he’d managed to accomplish with his pushing and squirming was to get himself in even tighter.

It’d seemed like a fun idea at the time. Of course, some variation of that statement was probably carved into a million gravestones across the Hundred Worlds, and on billions more memorial markers in various alien languages in the far corners of the universe. (There were actually a hundred and eighteen known human-inhabited worlds, but the Recovery League thought “The Hundred Worlds” sounded better on the news posts. Early in his career as an anthropologist, Lowell had learned that in most cultures, facts had to bow to considerations of marketing and image, or whatever the locals called them.)

The local tribe, the Enknopans, were all gathered somewhere outside their settlement, engaging in some sort of year’s turning ritual which involved renewing family bonds. Lowell had been told, very politely, that he was not welcome to participate or even to observe, since he wasn’t related to any of the Enknopan clans.

It’d been a sharp disappointment, not only because Lowell was specifically there to study the Enknopan culture and lifeways, but also because he’d come to feel close to the people there; being so firmly excluded was a reminder that he was still an outsider. It’d been a while since he’d received quite so clear a reminder, and it’d stung a bit.

To show that he didn’t hold a grudge, and also because the learning and sharing had to go both ways in order to be ethical and respectful, he’d decided to share a Terran year’s turning ritual with the Enknopans, and specifically with his friend Tiklup. Tiklup had taught Lowell how to carve wood with a knife, and Lowell had made him a covered bowl with a leaf pattern on the lid. It was pretty crude by local standards, the sort of thing a youngster just learning to carve would make, but Lowell was just learning and he was proud of it. Tiklup had been encouraging, and Lowell was sure he’d appreciate the effort, and understand that it was a tribute to his teaching.

Besides, they’d come to be very good friends, with all that meant to the Enknopans, who had some unusual (to a Terran) ideas about public and private activities.

The local star, called Upiklip by the locals and noted as FUSC-32829 on the most common star charts, was just beginning to show over the horizon. Of course Lowell was facing east, and he hadn’t brought his hat or his sun visor. Upiklip was whiter than Sol, where Lowell had been born, and emitted more UV radiation than he was used to. If no one came to pry him out soon, he’d be sizzled good. His first few days on planet, he’d gone without a hat a couple of times and the sunburn had penetrated all the way down to his scalp. He’d looked like he had a terminal case of dandruff for the next week, with huge flakes of peeling skin working their way out of his hair.

Lowell moaned and buried his face in his crossed arms.

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Get the rest here.

My novelette, “A Spirit of Vengeance,” was released today at Torquere. This is one of my favorite stories and I’m excited to see it go up.

When Josh comes home from a business trip to find out that his lover, Kevin, has been killed, his life takes a terrible turn. Even worse, Kevin is haunting him, wanting Josh to exact revenge on his killer. Josh thinks Kevin is a hallucination to begin with, but he soon starts to believe that his lover’s spirit is really hanging around.

As he begins to believe in Kevin’s ghost, Josh also starts to believe he knows who killed Kevin. He’s not sure what to do, and neither is Kevin, who never really considered an afterlife. Can these two figure out how to catch a killer and how to move on with life after death?

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Kevin came to him in a dream. Josh threw his arms around him and tried to kiss him, desperate to take what he could before he woke up or the scene shifted into something else, but his dream-lover grabbed him by the arms and shook him, holding him away so he could glare into his eyes.

“Help me, damn it!”

The demand was a barked order, an angry snarl, and at first Josh could only stand there in shock. Finally he managed, “Of course. Um, Kevin? God, Kevin!” He tried again to reach out but the grip on his upper arms would only let him grip his lover’s forearms in return. They felt more solid than he’d have expected from a dream, hard and trembling with tension. “What do you want? What can I do? Tell me!”

“Help me! Get the fucker who did this!” Kevin punctuated the demand with a hard shake.

“Oww! Stop, please! I’ll help you, of course I will!” Josh tried to pull away. He’d never been afraid of Kevin before, but a coil of fear was wrapping itself around his insides and squeezing. He shivered in an icy wind and wished he could huddle up against his lover to get warm but the cold seemed to be coming from Kevin, whipping around him.

“Help me!” Kevin demanded, his voice rough with fury.

“Yes! I will, I will!”

“Kill him! Kill the fucker for me!” Kevin roared.

Josh could only stand there, his lover’s hands crushing the flesh of his arms into his bones, and his mouth hanging open, until he woke up with a gasping cry, his heart pounding and his body drenched with sweat.

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Get the rest here.