#less anti amazon prime but they are still awful

[orionsangel86]

I'm not in the Good Omens fandom, so maybe I've got this wrong, but I suspect why everyone on my dash seems to be clamoring for an immediate fix-it besides obvious fandom impatience. I think a lot of people are convinced that basically nothing is coming back from the strikes. Tbh I kind of am myself. I've just accepted that we're never going to see Sandman s2 or GO s3 because Amazon and Netflix are shit. At least with Sandman we have the books?

I admit its a tough situation to be in. I guess for me, I am trying to have hope that the streamers will eventually see sense, because otherwise their business models are gonna fail and they are going to lose revenue anyway. Eventually some sort of deal will be made and the work will start again, I just hope beyond hope that the deal is everything the WGA and SAGAFTRA want.

I have more hope for a GOS3 than I do for a Sandman tbh. Simply because making films and TV isn't Amazon's main source of income so they can be a bit more flexible with their choices. They have renewed far less popular shows for far longer. It seems almost like the entertainment division is more a hobby or pet project for Amazon than its main focal point so IDK, I'm just not all that worried about Amazon Prime. I genuinely think Amazon is very proud of GO and they won't let go of it anytime soon. It's also one of their most popular shows so I'd be really surprised if they cancel it (though, then again, with the strikes anything can happen). We also still have the BBC backing it up I believe? Though I doubt they'd ever have the budget to take over fully if Amazon decided not to continue with it, but perhaps its possible the BBC could look for a new partner in that unlikely scenario? I dunno I'm not a media expert here by any means.

Sandman though is a different story. Extremely expensive, and on a streaming service notorious for cancelling shows mid season. With the strikes, I can see them changing their minds and cancelling Season 2 even though it started filming in some bitter attempt to get back at strikers and claim tax breaks where they can. I don't trust them at all. I loathe the Netflix execs because they have been cancelling, making excuses, and screwing over creatives for years now. They are the ones that started it all, and the other streamers simply took their ideas and ran with them. I wish Sandman had been on a different streamer. I feel like it would have been safer on Amazon Prime. Even if we do manage to get through to season 2 of Sandman, I have absolutely zero faith that we'll make it through to the end of the story on Netflix.

Though at least with Sandman, I believe (though correct me if I'm wrong) that Neil still holds all the rights, and if Netflix cancels it, he can put the option out to other networks/streamers to pick it up again? So even if Netflix does what Netflix always does, there is every possibility that it'll just jump to a different network to finish the story.

I hope that is the case, because in all honesty if I had to put money down on a bet on whether or not Netflix will follow through with Sandman right through to the Wake, I'll be betting against them. I just don't see it happening. Netflix are too flakey and well, evil, to care about stories to do it justice.

To your first point, I can understand the fear and do sympathise with fans being hurt and upset that GOS2 ended on such a grim cliffhanger, I just don't think the hate and denial and screams of "out of character!" are the way to handle that fear. But diving straight into fanfiction is a totally acceptable and encouraged way to manage the feelings anyone may have over the ending! That's totally fine! Keep the fix-its to fanfiction, but please stop clamouring for reasons why the ending was wrong and bad and stupid and worth sending Neil Gaiman inbox hate over. You're all better than that.

#Good Omens #Good Omens Season 2 #good omens season 2 spoilers #the sandman #fuck the streamers #neil gaiman #anti netflix #less anti amazon prime but they are still awful #fandom discourse #asks

[luntman]

Americanisation of English

I’m not anti American. I lap up a lot of American culture and exports as much as the next Brit. A lot of my all time favourite music is American including The War on Drugs, Nirvana, Bob Dylan, Jack White, Pixies, John Fahey and many more. The (bald) eagle-eyed will no doubt find plenty of Americanisms in this post too.

I love comics and graphic novels and whilst Marvel aren’t a favourite I love DC, Alterna, Image and IDW - all American.

Then there are films such as Goodfellas, Catch Me if You Can, Star Wars and the magical output from Disney.

I use a lot of American technology such as an iPad, Amazon Prime, Google Drive, XBox One and of course, Tumblr ;)

I had my honeymoon in New York and have been to Texas, Louisiana, California, Florida, Maine, Michigan, Nevada and met some wonderful people. I could go on but I did want this post to be a comment on the Americanisation (note the “s” rather than a “z” and the irony in using a word with “isation”) of British English. I accept that this might be as much of a highlight of how much of an old bastard I’m becoming more than anything else but I wanted to explore 5 particulars which aren’t, shall we say, my cup of tea.

1. The “road trip”

When did we Brits stop “going for a drive” and start taking “road trips”? I think it happened in 2000 as I for one was still “going for a drive” in the 1990s. Perhaps the film of the same name is the culprit - demonstrating the power that exported American culture can have on our language.

2. “Hey”

This one has crept up on us whilst we’ve been distracted with the fall out of the referendum but people started to say “hey” instead of “hi” or “hello” and I’m struggling to adjust. I know it is not the intention but I’m hardwired to treat someone saying “hey” to me as them being disgruntled with me for some reason. I much prefer a “hi”, “hello”, “mornin’”, or “alright”.

3. “June 23”

Whilst I firmly believe we’d never adopt the month/day/year abomination that is the US date format we have started saying dates as though we were all gruff-voiced film narrators. I was fine with “the 23rd of June”. Surely we’re not all so pressed for time that the dropping of two, one syllable words and a “rd” will provide us with time for longer “road trips”.

4. “Movies”

I’m no doubt going to sound like a snob here but to me a movie has always been a piece of throw away theatre. A shallow, easy-to-watch bit of escapism, often a blockbuster type affair such as Godzilla, Fast & Furious or 50 First Dates. Whilst I accept there is a lot of work in these, they’re not what I’d call a film. And by the same token a film such as the recent Stan & Ollie is exactly that - a film. Not a movie. A beautifully crafted piece of cinematic film. But it seems everything is a “movie” now which I think cheapens the less disposable output.

5. “Awesome”

I can probably count the amount of truly “awesome” things I’ve experienced on my fingers. Perhaps I’ve led a sheltered life but I’m quite well travelled, have children, a wife and have lived. And I reserve hyperbole for idle chat with friends and family.

I understand the word “awesome” to mean awe inspiring - yet in the past few months I’ve heard it being attributed to sandwiches, a pen, a character in a computer game and lettuce.

I like to think that part of what makes English such a beautiful language is its nuance. And I make that point fully aware that its origin lies in Latin and French. I believe the evolution of language is both a welcome and inevitable thing but I’m uneasy with the pace of change. Again, perhaps this is a sign of me getting old but when my kids talk of “garbage” or “trash” instead of “rubbish” I feel as though the influence of Youtubers and Twitch Streamers is out of control. What do you think?

[atthevogue]

“The Big Chill” (1983)

Opened: First opened in Louisville in October 1983 at Showcase Cinemas and a few of the other first-run multiplexes.

How often did they show it? The Big Chill played every few months at The Vogue from the tail end of its first theatrical run in 1984 through mid-1987.

Also on the bill: A typical bill from 1987 is Prick Up Your Ears at 7:30 (then a first-run movie), The Big Chill at 9:30, and Creature from the Black Lagoon at 11:30. 

What did the paper say? ★★★1/2 from Courier-Journal film critic Roger Fristoe when it opened in 1983. He called it a “funny, caring film” with “a brilliant ensemble performance of eight of the best young actors in films.”

What was I doing? I was four years old when it opened, and seven and eight when it played at The Vogue. There’s no plausible scenario under which I’d have seen it then, and I’d never seen it before now.

How did I watch it in 2017? Amazon Prime.

The fact that The Big Chill was a reliable presence at The Vogue few years after its release, even taking precedence over first-run features like Prick Up Your Ears, might give us a clue to the theater’s target demographic: boomers. From 1977 to 1998, the years we’re cataloging, I am certain the most reliable patrons of the theater were probably people a lot like the characters in The Big Chill. Mostly children of the Vietnam era, well-educated, white, middle class professionals with some sense of idealism, curdled or not, who’d probably been introduced to international and independent film on college campuses of the ‘60s and ‘70s at places like the University of Michigan, the characters’ alma mater. My guess is a lot of people going into see The Big Chill for the second or maybe third time in 1986 and ‘87 were seeing a version of themselves onscreen.

This was the first time I’d seen it, though its reputation precedes it: a group of college friends reunite for a weekend after their friend kills himself, and come to terms with what they’ve become, and what they mean to each other. I’ve known for a long time it was a major generational landmark for boomers, in terms of both the depiction of the decline and fall of the ‘60s generation, and for the ensemble of actors. That opening scene, scored to “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” is an absurd roll call of character actor talent that just keeps coming: Kline! Close! Goldblum! Hurt! Berenger! And they all look so young!

I have some Gen-X’r friends that are mildly contemptuous of the movie, in the way people tend to be contemptuous of the mass culture their adult siblings might have been into when they were surly teenagers (like in the way, for example, I think the tentpole X’er Cameron Crowe movies are kind of stupid). I don’t necessarily have the same preconceptions about The Big Chill, as I came almost exactly one generation after the filmmakers. The first scene in movie has Kevin Kline bathing his young son, who’s played by director Lawrence Kasdan’s real-life son Jon. Lawrence Kasdan is about the same age as my parents, and I am almost exactly the same age as Jon. He was born in September 1979, and I was born in November.

Even more than the cast, the movie is maybe best-known for its soundtrack, a cornucopia of what would later be known as oldies, late 1960s superhits like “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” and “Bad Moon Rising.” It’s impossible to imagine a world where Motown songs weren’t totally ubiquitous, but that seems to have been more or less the case in the early 1980s. The first oldies station in Louisville, 103.1 WRKA, launched in 1989, when I was nine years old, and my understanding is that the success of The Big Chill soundtrack kicked off a resurgence in interest in ‘60s music, in the same way American Graffiti kicked off a mania for ‘50s music ten years earlier. For the five or six years following, oldies were the soundtrack of everyday life around the house and in the car, and every one of the songs in heaviest rotation were on that soundtrack. 

In fact, in his original, glowing review of the movie in 1983, Courier-Journal movie critic Roger Fristoe’s sole complaint is "the cliche use of pop songs from the 1960s as a source of easy nostalgia.” I was sort of relieved to read this, because I thought the same thing watching it: Aw, come on, scoring the big group cooking scene to “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” a little on the nose, don’t you think? Plus, if they were crazy student revolutionaries in Ann Arbor in 1968, wouldn’t they have been listening to, like, the MC5 and Pharaoh Sanders? I wondered how all this Casey Kasem Top 40 didn’t seem terminally cliched at the time. Perhaps it was, a little bit, but also, maybe deploying those 10-ton nostalgia bombs, less foregrounded in pop culture of the time, was too mighty a force to struggle against for audiences of a certain age and disposition. The songs are loud, too: whenever one of the load-bearing oldies would kick in on the soundtrack, I’d have to turn the TV volume down a few notches. 

It’s hard to cut through all of this boomer nostalgia to get to the emotional core of the movie, though I think it’s buried in there somewhere. I’m the same age now (well, a little older) than most of the characters in the movie, and I’ve also had to come to terms with the same questions of drifting away from college friends and youthful ideals. So you’d think there’d be some resonance. There is, but not as much as one might think.

My college experience was very unlike what a person at the University of Michigan in the late 1960s would have experienced. I also didn’t pivot away from those years as acutely, at least in terms of material reward. I was in college through the 2000 presidential election, the 9/11 attacks and the beginning of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it wasn’t like the 1960s. Most of my peers were pretty cynical (or just oblivious) to begin with, and any sparkling youthful idealism I remember comes later, more closely correlated with the anti-war movements leading up to the ‘04 election and the election of Obama in ‘08, when the first wave of my friends’ kids were coming in. More importantly, whatever youthful idealism I had, I certainly didn’t trade in for a career in, ahem, the establishment. Almost no one in my cohort makes as much money as their parents made at the same age, whether they wanted to sell out or not. The idea of cashing in youthful radicalism for stock options and business ownership, a point around which many of the characters’ struggles pivot, is practically in the realm of science fiction seen from the second decade of the twenty-first century. It feels so specific to the boomer experience -- the idea that not only is material comfort an ideological betrayal, but it’s there for the taking to just about anyone who wants it -- that it’s hard to go along with the movie’s gentle insistence that this is a type of universal experience.

Change and growth are universal, though, even stripped of their generational context. That opening scene with “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” is great, with poor dead Alex being suited up, and all the group being introduced one-by-one, setting everyone up for the conflicts and conversations to come. Apparently an earlier cut of the film had flashback scenes, which were later excised because test audiences kept laughing at the period clothing. The movie is stronger without the flashbacks, in the same way keeping the dead friend Alex, played by a spectral Kevin Costner, an unseen presence who never appears on screen. (The fact that you probably come into a contemporary viewing of the movie knowing Kevin Costner’s scenes were cut, and knowing what Kevin Costner looked like and what sort of character he’d play, gives it even more extratextual depth.) The characters are drawn reasonably well, which may have more to do with the fact that actors like Glenn Close and Mary Kay Place and William Hurt are so good at what they do. Even when they’re doing things that seem a little off: the final scene between Kline and Place is kind of hard to believe, even though it’s very sweet and Close in particular really makes it seem plausible.

Kasdan based The Big Chill partly on Jean Renoir’s Rules of the Game, which you can still see shown at a festival or on the streaming service of your choice. People can still recognize themselves in the relationship dynamics of that movie, even if they’re not pre-WWII French noblemen and servants spending a weekend on a country estate. In a way, it’s easier to see the resonance when you’re further removed from the immediate cultural context. I wonder how The Big Chill will look to a person 35 years from now, when the familiarity of those songs has dissipated and the cultural baggage of the 1960s doesn’t mean as much. Maybe closer to how Rules of the Game looks to me now, even if The Big Chill isn’t as good a movie. 

Come to think of it: isn’t this very Vogue theater project a similar form of gauzy nostalgia, fondly glancing back on the lost world of the youthful past, substituting ‘80s art house movies for Motown hits? When William Hurt tells the rest of the group “a long time ago we knew each other for a short period of time,” that felt like the most real part of the movie, a reminder that people have a way of idealizing their own pasts and, particularly, the relationships they had in those years. That’s a tougher line of inquiry than you get in a lot of the movie, even if it’s a little undercut by the fact that the line is played as more an angry outburst than a trenchant insight.

I might be closer to this than I think.

#the big chill

[vishers]

Friday-ish Links

Conrad Barski (author of the classic Land of Lisp, a classic and enjoyable introduction to CL) apparently shares my opinion that all the great developers are obsessed with automation.

I'm starting to realize why great programmers are so obsessed with automating all the steps in their workflows: It's not for aesthetic reasons or to save time.

It's simply because it's hard work to keep remembering all the steps.

Hillel Wayne with a hit 2 weeks in a row. This one is applicable to so many domains but the ones I'm thinking of most directly are where you put your data validation rules and generative testing. The debate between making your database dumb and your app smart or your database smart and your app dumb is a hot one. I sit firmly in the smart DB camp. I feel like Hillel's insights here are something that I came upon myself when trying to get into generative testing with test.check. It's very natural to start with generating a bunch of data and then using predicates to filter it down but it's much more constructive (har har) to explictly build the data you're looking for in a given situation. I should really do that test.check talk.

Unfortunately I have nothing to link to because their apparently working on a polished version for their blog. Maybe you should just get off your butt and sign up for the newsletter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My buddy Redmond is interested in promoting intellectual humility and wondered whether there was something that could be done technologically to foster it. We're batting some ideas back and forth but of course it made me think of Eli Pariser's classic filter bubbles TED talk. I'm intrigued to learn that more recent research has at least suggested that filter bubbles don't have the effect one would intuitively expect them to. Cognitive Biases may be too strong to overcome simply with presentation of new information.

De-Coding The Technical Interview Process

This book looks really interesting. With COVID making the rounds many of us may be working through the god-awful interview process our industry continues to foist upon us.

via Kevin Sherman via Angie Jones via Emma Bostian

emacs-lsp/lsp-mode: Emacs client/library for the Language Server Protocol

Looks very interesting. I don't want an IDE necessarily but I sometimes would like to use IDE features. On the other hand I'll never forget Kyle Burton's insight that IDE's actually support the development of overly complex systems by hiding so much of the complexity away inside of the IDE features (an insight that he attributed to Aaron Feng, IIRC). If I'm writing something that can't be effectively manipulated as text I think I have a problem.

via lsp-mode 6.3 released to MELPA stable : emacs

What is it about? - Community Center / Watercooler - ClojureVerse

I think this is kind of beautiful and a direct reminder of why I still love the Clojure and its community.

Re: Use readonly wherever possible?

This is the kind of discussion that keeps me around in help-bash. It's also the kind of discussion that keeps a lot of people away from bash. I don't think that's really fair. Every language, no matter how well designed, has pitfalls and gotchas that you need to be aware of and anti-patterns that are obvious in hindsight but invisible on the way in.

Hillel Wayne's How I Write Talks Newsletter got me thinking about just how much I love How to Speak How to Listen. One of the many things recommended in that book is a particularly unorthodox style of writing presentations down with extremely significant indentation and whitespace that greatly aids the speaker.

Last Week in AWS is a great way to keep up with developments from AWS. I was said to learn that Amazon continues to disprove it's quality in issue 160 which will eventually hit the archives I'm sure that Tim Bray has resigned in protest over Amazon's treatement of it's workers during this pandemic. That Prime membership is looking less and less appealing every day.

Complexity Has to Live Somewhere

This really hits home right now. People have a tendency to look at everything everyone else is doing and come to the snap conclusion that it's too complicated. This is the kind of community anti-pattern pointed out by Evan Czaplicki in The Hard Parts of Open Source where someone most likely fresh to the community or space takes 5 minutes to look at a problem and says to themselves, in the immortal words of a HISHE Dub, "That's dumb. You're dumb." and decides that they could do it in a much simpler manner. The problem is that most people are trying to implement the simplest system they can given the constraints they have and often much more complexity has been thrown at that system than is obvious at even third or fourth blush. What you're embarking down when you've decided that some system is obviously too complex and needs to simplified is a rewrite.

Reminds me of the classic on why you really should think at least 18 times if you're considering rewriting software. And if we're linking to Joel we might as well link to his excellent character encoding post which every developer everywhere should read and my personal favorite presentation of all time on the subject, How Do I Stop the Pain?.

The Open Group / DPBoK Community Edition · GitLab

Very intriguing. I need to read this more deeply.

Amazing streaming stuff

Twelve Shows Streaming Now | News | Great Performances | PBS

Royal Opera House

The Shows Must Go On! - YouTube

One more entry for why I hang around the grey beards (and secretly wish to become one). Peng Yu makes bash do things that most people would consider unnatural but sometimes they come up with quite a good question. I'm dead sure that I will encounter a behavioral problem in the future because of the apparent difference between logical and physical paths simply because I had the misfortune of reading this thread.

What is the difference between $PWD and pwd?

Re: What is the difference between $PWD and pwd?

git - Explain which gitignore rule is ignoring my file - Stack Overflow

Really? You added *jar to .gitignore rather than *.jar!?

Angie Jones t00ted that she was playing around with Java 14 Records (currently in preview). It got me thinking about how amazingly impressed I am by Java and it's stewardship over the years. Java's just sitting their calmly trucking along while languages flash around it day and day out and developers chasing their next high flit from one new thing to the next hoping to find that silver bullet that will unlock their 10x-developer potential. And while these new languages hang around for a bit and then generally die off because the next big thing comes out, Java gets to pick through the corpse, choose the juiciest parts, and incorporate them right into itself, all on top of the JVM which is still one of the most impressive pieces of technology I've ever seen. Java, like Python as much as it pains me to say, is a Dark Matter language. As much as I love Clojure I have trouble imagining a future where I'll be writing it for the rest of my life. I already don't write only or even mostly Clojure. But I will definitely be writing Java again in my career and it will be world's better than when I left it (Java 1.5 Generics FTW BAYBEEEE) for my own dream chasing.

via Payara on Twitter

My wife and I finally got to watch The Shape of Water. What a film. It drips with Pan's Labyrinth which obviously makes sense. I think as it's settled it's become a solid ★★★★☆. What a film he would've made had he actually been given the reigns for The Hobbit.

#friday-ish links

[theliterateape]

Problematic Movies of the 80s | Stripes (1981)

by Don Hall

Bill Murray saved my life in high school.

I was always a bit of an outlier in grade school. A smartass. A kid who tried to redefine himself multiple times due to being the new kid in every school, every year. I believe that because I was perpetually new to each system in place, I was able to be more objective about the flaws in those systems. I could see through the built in hypocrisies and the shallowness of the popular crowds.

On the other hand, maybe I was just an asshole who decided early on to play things by my own set of rules.

When Murray came out in 1979 with Meatballs the caricature of my character became popular in a way that only pop culture can define. The rules were flaccid and pointless he told us. Everything was a joke he proclaimed. No wonder my teachers mostly hated me.

In 1980, as I joined the awful social experiment known as high school, my mom had had about enough and I started getting appointments set up for me with military recruiters. The idea being that perhaps being indoctrinated into a highly disciplined, brutally conformist system that I couldn’t escape from would sand off my anti-authoritarian edges and prime me better for life.

In 1981 my cinematic, comedic hero answered the call that asked and answered the question: What if the Army took in a squad of the least capable idiots ever comprised for military service and they managed to succeed despite all evidence to the contrary?

Stripes Directed by  Ivan Reitman Written by Len Blum, Dan Goldberg, Harold Ramis

From the get-go, John Winger (Murray) is shown to be a complete loser man-boy. In the first five minutes, he has two guys ditch the fare in his cab, he abandons his cab on a bridge because his new fare is a caustic old woman, his car is repossessed, and his live-in girlfriend dumps him because he is basically coasting through life and squandering any future she may have with him.

His best friend Russell (Ramis) is seen to be a completely unqualified ESL teacher for new New York immigrants who doesn’t really take his employ seriously and for his first lesson teaches his class to sing the refrain of “Da Do Ron Ron.”

Life has passed them by so Winger convinces Russell to join the Army because Why Not?

Thus the two enlist and are instantly surrounded by a cast of complete outcasts, idiots, and miscreants who basically had the same idea. They meet two hot MPs (P.J. Soles and Sean Young) who remarkably take a shine to them and the inevitable representation of Boot Camp authority, Sergeant Hulka (Warren Oates).

The plotline exists solely to showcase the sort of early SNL sketch moments of these ridiculous fish-out-of-water morons navigating the Army: buzzcuts, marching pointlessly, a tell-us-your-story session with Hulka, clashes between the Sarge and Winger, the night of leave at a strip club with women mud wrestling (remember when this was a thing?), and a classic moment that apes the commercials of the day as the morons slowly crawl back to the barracks, exhausted, singing the “Be All You Can Be” jingle.

The two hot MPs whisk them away from being arrested from the strip club and then we have the two loser dudes have bizarre childish sexy times with them.

The inevitable Bad News Bears triumph, the assignment to a classified operation involving a militarized Winnebago, an illegal infiltration of Czechoslovakia and RV rescue, and a wrap-up where everyone but P.J. Soles comes out as a hero (her big post-Stripes achievement is the cover of Playboy.)

Throughout it all, Murray maintains his smarmy, smartass objectivity. 

PROBLEMATIC MOMENTS/THEMES

Oh man. Stripes is a relative stew of problematic elements, simmering without malice but just as tasty when the ingredients are sussed out.

Mocking immigrants? Check.

“Monkeyheaded chicks” when referring to Vietnamese women? Check.

Unnecessary topless women. Check. Check, check, check, and check.

Token black actors with lines that only reflect that they are, in fact, black? Check.

Speaking of gratuitous boobs, why does Captain Stillman (John Larroquette) have to be pulling a Porky’s move and spying on naked women in the shower on a military base with almost no women present almost anywhere? 

Mild homophobic humor (cuz being gay was funny in the 80s…) Check.

DID IT HOLD UP?

Let’s face it. Under the scrutiny of 2019 and the Overwhelming Parade of Wokeness, this film is not making the cut.

BUT.

I love early Bill Murray. On some level, I feel his man-child attitude was exactly what a fourteen-year old kid needed: someone who threw all of the conformity and mundanity of adult life and said “Fuck this, man. Let’s behave as if none of it matters and laugh like loons at all the squares!” As an adult in his fifties, I can see that this lifestyle, this dogma of nonconformity and 1970’s SNL thumbing noses at the Establishment, wears thin pretty soon.

My guess is that the Gen Z kids out there will feel the same way when the re-watch some of their Woke heroes on film.

In my teens, I saw Winger’s perspective. In my fifties, I totally understand his girlfriend when she dumps him. In my teens, Sergeant Hulka was The Boot on the Neck of the Hero. In my fifties, he’s the hero. Or at least not the bad guy. I mean, Murray’s the hero despite learning nothing and maintaining his heathy disdain for humanity.

One part of the disconnect from films of the 1980s and today is that then there was less a need for every piece of film to have a political message of some kind. Today, whether the movie is driving at a message or not, the introspection of every film is to look deeply for the message it’s sending. In the black and white paradigm of Oppressors and Oppressed, we are no longer looking at the fun but the Good and Evil in every casting choice, every plot device, every line or joke.

So. Did it hold up? Probably not but I’m keeping my VHS copy until the day I die for the same reason I still keep Abbey Road and always have a copy of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. It’s simply a part of who I am and a benchmark of who I have become. It also still makes me laugh.

OVERALL

Scale of 1 to 10 1 = Classic 10 = Burn all VHS copies of it

For Me: Stripes gets a 2. For Everybody Else: 7

Next Up: Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)

#Problematic Movies of the ’80s #Stripes

[newsclubi]

Amazon Results: Solid balance sheet driven by AWS growth, but expensive 24-hour delivery

In the second quarter, the firm of Jeff Bezos inflated its revenues, but not its profits, the fault of too heavy investments. Amazon released its quarterly results on Thursday, July 25. The e-commerce giant, already in the grip of a US government investigation linked to potentially anti-competitive practices, surprised by revealing a lower balance sheet than analysts forecast. Prime's one-day delivery program is very expensive for the company.

A lower than expected profit for Amazon

In the second quarter, Amazon generated revenue of $ 63.40 billion (or € 56.91 billion), a net increase of 19.9%, well above expectations ($ 62.48 billion). ). This is also higher than the first-quarter revenue ($ 59.7 billion), probably an effect of the Prime Days event. The Seattle firm expects a turnover of between 66 and 70 billion dollars in the third quarter.

Read also: Results Alphabet (Google): Revenues above expectations and a cloud that is gaining weight

It's more about the benefits that Amazon is disappointing. While these were in the range of $ 3.6 billion in the first quarter, the profit of the last three months did not exceed $ 2.6 billion. Analysts expected a result of around 2.8 billion. Earnings per share are $ 5.22. For the next quarter, the company expects a profit of between 2.1 and 3.1 billion dollars.

AWS progresses on the cloud, which is maturing

On the side of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud division of the king of e-commerce, yes, earnings growth is less strong than last year, from 49 to 37%. But in the second quarter, AWS revenue grew 37 percent year-on-year to $ 8.4 billion ($ 6.1 billion in the previous year). AWS also continues to grow in Amazon, from 12% of the company's total revenue in the first quarter to 13% in the second. If these revenues on the cloud remain considerable, we are still witnessing the gradual maturing of the market. Finally, the delivery in one day, available to Prime subscribers who are more than 100 million in the world, had some consequences on the balance sheet of Amazon. The program is very expensive: more than 800 million dollars invested in the second quarter. "  We have had additional costs in our warehouses, and our rapid expansion has cost us a lot of productivity,  " said Brian Olsavsky, CFO of the group. As at Google or the side of Microsoft, the time is not the crisis so far from it.  from Blogger https://ift.tt/2LKHVpZ via IFTTT

#Amazon #companies #GAFAM

[mrmichaelchadler]

The Best Current Source for Streaming Classic Movies is ... Amazon Prime?

What is the classic movie fan to do in the era of Netflix? For a few glorious years FilmStruck was our salvation, offering a rich, well-curated collection of films from the silent era through the 1970s, something Netflix gave up on years ago. 

So with FilmStruck dead, where can the fan of classic movies—let's say, just for the sake of argument, anything older than 40 years—get their fix without resorting to renting each and every title on iTunes or Fandango?

The answer might surprise you. The meatiest streaming source for world cinema classics is Kanopy, a free service offered through most (though not all) public and college library systems. But there's a limit of five streams per month and while they carry hundreds of titles from the Criterion Collection from such directors as Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman, the collection of classic American cinema is relatively small.

That's where Amazon Prime Video enters the picture. Netflix has maybe a dozen Hollywood feature films from the years between 1940 and 1980, along with a collection of war documentaries and rarities from pioneering women filmmakers and African-American directors. Interesting, yes, even admirable, but awfully limited in scope and selection.

Prime Video offers a rich, rapidly-churning catalog of sixties and seventies cinema: "Chinatown" and "All the President's Men," "A Clockwork Orange" and "Raging Bull," "The Great Escape" and "Mickey One." And back it goes through Billy Wilder's "Some Like it Hot" and "The Apartment," John Huston's "Moby Dick," Howard Hawks' "Red River," "Born Yesterday" with Judy Holliday and William Holden, "Platinum Blonde" with Jean Harlow, and holiday perennial "It's a Wonderful Life" just to name just a few. 

Dig a little deeper and you can find the deliriously baroque western "Johnny Guitar" with Joan Crawford, end-of-the-world drama "Five" from radio drama pioneer Arch Oboler, "Dead Reckoning" with Humphrey Bogart, "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" with Ray Harryhausen effects, and Ben Gazzara in "The Strange One," the first film from "Private Property" director and Actor's Studio legend Jack Garfein. There are silent films, crime pictures, westerns, and musicals, plus gialli, spaghetti westerns and Italian crime thrillers, Japanese gangster pictures, cult oddities like Slava Tsukerman's "Liquid Sky" and Teruo Ishii's "Horrors of Malformed Men," and even a few international classics.

So why isn't Prime Video getting more attention?

Amazon's catalog of Hollywood and international classics is admittedly on the shallow side compared to the height of FilmStruck, which married two amazing catalogues with a deep collection of film history. But it's an eclectic collection and it's always churning out new titles. In 2018, Amazon Prime members could stream "Mean Streets," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "The Man Who Would Be King," "Barry Lyndon," "Bullitt," "Performance," "Point Blank," "Bonnie and Clyde," "Gone With the Wind," and "The Wizard of Oz." 

Still, there's a major problem: finding the films in Amazon's catalog. FilmStruck was curated, and told subscribers what was new and it provided spotlights on directors, actors, and various themes to encourage exploration. The classics of Prime Video are buried amongst scores of B-movies, old and new.

There are others problems: Amazon offers both a Prime Video service of streaming movies with a subscription along with its huge selection of Amazon rentals. Recommendation galleries and search results often bring up a mix of both. Even some individual films—"Red River," for example—are offered from multiple sources, only one of which is included in the Prime subscription. The search results don't always favor the free version, which is usually indistinguishable in quality. The only difference is that one will cost you a few dollars to rent. It may simply be a flaw in the system but a more cynical take might see this as a sneaky way to grab a few extra bucks. Whatever the reason, it's doesn’t help the Amazon Prime subscriber make the most of their service.

While the majority of films are presented in fine editions, indifferent quality control means that there are scores of poor copies of public domain titles (as well as some more recent films) that don't look or sound much better than the bargain bin videotapes you could find 20 years ago. That's an instant turn-off in an age where studios routinely remaster their catalog for the HD era. 

Browsing by genre on Amazon Prime is like wading through the donations bin of a library sale and counting on Amazon's own recommendations isn't much better. For a company that built its success on targeting consumers based on their buying patterns, the metrics of Amazon's search function fail to sort the wheat from the chaff of its streaming library. 

And there's a lot of chaff in their vast collection. For example, when I log in to my account and click my way to "Movies" and "included with Prime," I get plenty of recent releases front-loaded on the page. There are even a few genuine classics in my "Top Rated Movies" feed: "A Clockwork Orange," "The Big Country," "The Great Escape." But when I scroll down to "Classic Movies" the pickings are, shall we say, a little less promising. 1983 "Animal House" knock-off "Screwballs," "Lone Wolf McQuade" with Chuck Norris, and the vile "The Evil That Men Do" with Charles Bronson are all offered up before "All the President's Men" and "The Apartment" appear. Definitions of the term "classic" aside, what in my search history churns up these suggestions?

With FilmStruck gone and no real alternative filling the void at present, Amazon is in a prime position to grab up fans of classic movies. But why isn't there some kind of mailing promoting those older classics cycling through the catalog every month? And why aren't Amazon's Facebook and Twitter feeds alerting movie buffs of what's new beyond "Mrs. Maisel" and "You Were Never Really Here" and other Prime Originals? For a marketing powerhouse like Amazon, they can't seem to find my sweet spot, and I'm a guy who is constantly clicking on classic titles to spotlight in my newspaper columns and website.

There's a great selection of films for film buffs, classics fans, and adventurous viewers. All they need is a little help finding them. So here's a sampling of just a few titles from across the spectrum that you can stream now with a Prime subscription, a little something for all tastes: 

Bonafide Classics:

Alan J. Pakula's "All the President’s Men" (1976) with Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman.

Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" (1974) with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.

World War II adventure "The Great Escape" (1963) with Steve McQueen leading a grand cast of escapees.

Stanley Kubrick's anti-war classic "Paths of Glory" (1958) with Kirk Douglas.

George Cukor's "Born Yesterday" (1950), which earned an Oscar for Judy Holliday.

Howard Hawks' epic western "Red River" (1948) with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift.

George Stevens' "The Talk of the Town" (1942) with Jean Arthur, Cary Grant, and Ronald Colman.

Leo McCarey's "The Awful Truth" (1937) with Cary Grant and Irene Dunne.

Gregory La Cava's screwball masterpiece "My Man Godfrey" (1936) with William Powell and Carole Lombard. There are plenty of bad editions out there; this is from an excellent source.

"Gumshoe"

A Deeper Dive:

"Images" (1972, R) – Susannah York won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her performance as a deeply schizophrenic author in Robert Altman’s richly textured psychological thriller.

"Gumshoe" (1972) – The feature debut of director Stephen Frears is a playful tribute to American crime movies starring the late Albert Finney as a small time Liverpool entertainer playing private detective.

"Age of Consent" (1969) – James Mason is an artist who flees England for Australia to go Gauguin on a tropical island and a young Helen Mirren is his muse in Michael Powell's final feature film.

"Mickey One" (1965) – Warren Beatty is a nightclub comic who goes on the run when the mob tries to kill him in the offbeat psychodrama from director Arthur Penn.

"Zulu" (1964) – Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, and Michael Caine are hopelessly outnumbered in Cy Enfield's end-of-the-empire military epic set in a colonial 19th century African outpost.

"Underworld U.S.A." (1961) – Organized crime is merely another form of big business in Sam Fuller's punchy, pulpy revenge drama with Cliff Robertson, one of the director's best.

"The Big Country" (1958) – William Wellman's sweeping cattle country epic stars Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Burl Ives, and a gloriously epic score.

"The Barefoot Contessa" (1954) – Ava Gardner is the title character in the Joseph L. Mankiewicz drama, but Humphrey Bogart took top billing and supporting actor Edmund O'Brien took home the Oscar.

"Johnny Guitar" (1954) – Scarlett businesswoman Joan Crawford takes on repressed Mercedes McCambridge in a psychological western with political reverberations from Nicholas Ray.

"Merrily We Go To Hell" (1932) – Dorothy Arzner, a rare career woman director in the Hollywood’s early sound era, directs this sassy pre-code drama of society decadence and excess with Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney.

"Cockfighter"

Cult Movies:

"Cockfighter" (1974) – Warren Oates is an obsessive cockfighting trainer who takes a vow of silence after his hubris costs him the championship in the offbeat adaptation of Charles Willeford's novel directed by Monte Hellman.

"Wake in Fright" (1971) – The brutal, blackly funny thriller of an urban schoolteacher (Gary Bond) stranded in a grimy mining town in the sun-blasted Australian Outback anticipates the New Australian Cinema. Donald Pleasance co-stars.

"Death Laid an Egg" (Italy, 1968) – Italian murder mystery intertwines with surreal satire in Giulio Questi's "film blanc" starring Jean-Louis Trintignant as a gentleman poultry farmer who unwinds from a hard day by murdering prostitutes. Gina Lollobrigida and Ewa Aulin co-star.

"Homicidal" (1961) – If William Castle is the B-movie Hitchcock, then this devious little gem is his "Psycho," an inspired twist with a shocker of a first-act murder, a third-act psychologist’s explanation, and Castle's own invention: the "Fright Break."

"The Golden Coach"

Foreign Affairs: 

"Perceval" (France, 1978) – Eric Rohmer’s most unique feature, a strange, sophisticated mix of theater, medieval literature, story-song, and cinema, is a glorious odyssey into the very nature of stories and storytelling.

"The Firemen's Ball" (Czechoslovakia, 1967) – A satirical edges of Milos Forman's dark comedy of a small town fire brigade's annual fund raising party unraveling in chaos was not lost on the Soviet government, which tried to ban the film.

"The Golden Coach" (France, 1952) – Anna Magnani is the earthy, vivacious diva of a traveling troupe of Italian commedia dell'arte players in a Peruvian backwater in Jean Renoir's loving tribute to the theater of love and the power of art. Amazon offers the English language version, which Renoir acknowledged as the definitive version.

"Zero for Conduct" (France, 1933) – Jean Vigo's anarchic gem celebrates the rebellious spirit of adolescent boys in the first masterpiece of pre-pubescent self-actualization, a strange and wonderful film full of unbridled imagination, flights of fantasy, and delirious images.

from All Content http://bit.ly/2GCnDMa

[ramialkarmi]

Amazon is trading at more than 200 times its earnings — here's why that's not as crazy as it sounds (AMZN)

Ahead of Amazon's earnings report Thursday, the company is trading at a steep premium to its earnings.

Even with that premium, bulls have lots of reasons to like the company and its stock.

But there are some clouds overhanging the company, including criticism from President Trump and a swelling amount of debt and long-term obligations.

At more than 20 years old and with a valuation of more than $700 billion, Amazon's no startup. But if you're invested in the company, you're banking that it will continue to grow like one.

That bet has paid off quite handsomely of late. Amazon's shares have well more than doubled over the last two years and are up around 25% in the year to date.

But with the company's stock now trading at a precariously high rate of more than 200 times its earnings over the last year, the key question for investors is whether Amazon will be able to keep meeting their expectations.

For now, Wall Street thinks it can. When Amazon reports earnings on Thursday, analysts are expecting it will announce a 40% jump in sales — boosted in part by its Whole Foods acquisition — and are looking the company to forecast a similar increase for the second quarter.

Bulls have plenty they can point to support their optimism. Amazon dominates online commerce in the US and continues to grow its share of the market both here and abroad. Its purchase of Whole Foods last year gives it a new opportunity to grow its retail sales, luring Whole Foods customers to its web store and its online customers to the grocery chain.

Meanwhile, the company recently announced that it now has 100 million subscribers to its Prime service. Because Prime customers tend to spend more with the company than the average consumer, the ever growing number of them could lead to a boom in Amazon's retail sales.

Amazon's best bets may be outside traditional retail sales

But many analysts think that the company's best prospects are outside its traditional business of selling products directly to customers. There's a lot of optimism, for instance, about Amazon's prospects in a related area — selling and delivering goods for other merchants.

Over the last several years, Amazon has been building out its network of fulfillment centers around the world. Last year, it spent $10.1 billion — up from $6.7 billion the year before — in part to expand that network.

That outlay is starting to pay off. Last year, the company brought in $31.9 billion from commissions and shipping and delivery fees for sales by third-party vendors. That was up from around $23 billion in 2016.

Another area many analysts are hopeful about is advertising. As Amazon has become the first stop for folks shopping online, it's started to build up an advertising business, allowing companies to advertise their wares to its shoppers.

Many analysts have high hopes for that business, seeing it as a source of low-cost revenue growth, which could lead to substantial profits. It's already off to a strong start. Last year, the company brought in $4.7 billion in "other" revenue, which includes its advertising sales. That was up from about $3 billion the previous year.

AWS remains its crown jewel

But the biggest source of optimism for analysts and investors has generally been Amazon Web Services, the company's cloud-computing service. The company pioneered the market and now firmly leads it. With large and small businesses alike increasingly embracing the cloud and moving away from operating their own data centers, that's a good position to be in.

AWS has already been growing rapidly. Last year, the segment posted sales of $17.5 billion and reached an annualized run rate of $20 billion. That was up from $12.2 billion in sales in 2016.

Even though the cloud-computing effort still represents a small portion of Amazon's overall revenue, it already provides the lion's share of its profits. Last year, AWS brought in $4.3 billion in operating income, which more than made up for the $225 million operating loss posted by Amazon's combined North American and international retail operations.

Analysts are betting that AWS will continue to post such strong results.

But for any company trading at such a steep premium, falling even a little shy of analyst and investor expectations could be painful. And there are at least some reasons to be concerned about Amazon.

But Trump and debt may weigh on the company

Of late, the company and founder Jeff Bezos have found themselves in the sights of President Donald Trump, who has complained that Amazon unfairly competes with local retailers and pays less than it should to the US Postal Service for delivery costs. Those complaints could eventually weigh on Amazon's revenue and profits, particularly if they result in more uniform collection of online sales taxes — which could hit the company's third-party sellers — and higher postage rates.

But there are other concerns beyond those coming from Trump. As the company has built out its fulfilment network and added new titles to its library of streaming videos available to its Prime members, its debt has started to swell and long-term obligations have started to swell. Last year, its long-term debt more than tripled to $24.7 billion, while its long-term obligations — which are largely comprised of lease agreements — jumped to $21 billion from $12.6 billion.

More broadly, Amazon has some $40 billion in bills coming due between now and the end of 2020 just from debt, leases, video content production agreements, and similar long-term commitments.

Much of the bull case around the company has been built around not its reported profits, which are traditional fairly modest, but around its ability to produce free cash flow, which is the difference between the money generated from its operations and its investments in property and equipment and other capital expenditures.

Last year, Amazon posted free cash flow of $8.4 billion. That was more than double its reported profit of $3 billion, but off from the $10.5 billion it posted the year before.

Free cash flow is supposed to be a way of getting at how much cash a company is really generating on an ongoing basis. But in Amazon's case, that may not be the case. If you start taking into account the money it's spending repaying its leasing costs, the company's cash flow starts to look a lot worse. By at least some measures, if you include such costs, Amazon actually saw a net outflow of cash last year, to the tune of $1.5 billion.

For now, though, Amazon's optimists are winning the day. As long as the company continue to post impressive growth, that likely won't change.

SEE ALSO: A soft spot in Amazon's core business will surprise investors in Q1, but Wall Street will have a bigger reason to celebrate

SEE ALSO: Trump's anti-Amazon crusade could actually help the company — even if it leads to sales tax changes and higher shipping rates

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[infinitehouseofbooks]

BLOG TOUR - Demon Assassins

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to INFINITE HOUSE OF BOOKS by Bewitching Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.   INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR Thank you so much for inviting me to your blog! I appreciate your interest in my books.   What initially got you interested in writing? I’ve always been a writer. Poetry and the school paper in high school and interminable, far less interesting, writing as a psychologist. Words have always come easily to me, so I write fast, which helps. I’ve spent a lot of time in the backcountry by myself. Stories always ran around in my head and one day toward the tail end of 2008, I came home from a Labor Day trip to climb Bear Creek Spire, sat at the keyboard, and began breathing life into my fantasies.   How did you decide to make the move into being a published author? I started with short stories and after having about 15 of them accepted for publication, I moved into longer works. At the beginning, I wrote for publishers. It’s only been the last couple of years I made a full commitment to being an Indie author.   What do you want readers to take away from reading your works? Many of my books have a dystopian setting. I probably do that because I want others to understand how truly fragile our environment is—and how easily we could lose it. For my romances, I want readers to see that everything worthwhile takes effort. No one gets everything they want. Not in my stories or in real life, either.   What do you find most rewarding about writing? I love the flow. I feel more like a medium than anything else when ideas are flowing, and I live in that story world right along with my characters.   What do you find most challenging about writing? Marketing. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with it from the beginning. I went from a profession where I needed to be darn near invisible to one where I sometimes feel like I live in a fishbowl. The transition hasn’t been an easy one.   What advice would you give to people want to enter the field? Treat writing like a job. Be structured and disciplined about it. Set daily word count goals and stick with it until you’ve gotten there. Depending on how my day goes, I’m often at the computer late at night because I won’t let myself sleep until I have that day’s chapter written. Don’t expect instant success, or success at all. There’s not much money in books. This is something you do because you love it—not because you think you can be the next Nora Roberts. I’m finally making a decent income, but it’s taken years, and I still plow half of what I earn back into cover art, editing, marketing, and now audio.   What ways can readers connect with you? www.anngimpel.com www.facebook.com/anngimpel.author www.amazon.com/author/anngimpel http://anngimpel.blogspot.com @AnnGimpel I also have a presence on Pinterest, G+, and Linked In ABOUT THE BOOKS Witch’s Bounty Demon Assassins Book One Ann Gimpel   Dream Shadow Press 66K words   Release Date: 9/6/16   Genre: Urban Fantasy Romance   Urban Fantasy Romance with a heaping side of Hexes, Spells, and Magick!   Book Description:   One of three remaining demon assassin witches, Colleen is almost the last of her kind. Along with her familiar, a changeling spirit, she was hoping for a few months of quiet, running a small magicians’ supply store in Fairbanks, Alaska. Peace isn’t in the cards, though. Demons are raising hell in Seattle. She’s on her way to kick some serious demon ass, when a Sidhe shows up and demands she accompany him to England to quell a demon uprising.   Gutsy, opinionated, and outspoken, Colleen refuses to come. Witches need her help, and they trump everything else. Despite breaking a prime Sidhe precept concerning non-interference in mortals’ affairs, Duncan offers his assistance. Colleen fascinates him, and he wants to discover more about her. Lots more. The Sidhe might be the best-looking man Colleen’s ever stumbled over, but she doesn’t have time for him—or much of anything else. She, Jenna, and Roz are Earth’s only hedge against being overrun by Hell’s minions. Even with help from a powerful magic wielder like Duncan, the odds aren’t good and the demons know it. Sensing victory is within their grasp, they close in for the kill.   Amazon    BN    Kobo    iBooks    ARe    Google Play    Author’s Store   Excerpt from Witch’s Bounty:   Rain worsened from a steady drizzle to a pounding, punishing deluge of icy sleet. Colleen Kelly strengthened the spell around herself. It sizzled where it ran up against the droplets. At least she wasn't quite as wet as she would have been without its protection. Pavement glistened wetly in the last of the day's light. It was just past three in the afternoon, but December days were short in the northern latitudes and Fairbanks was pretty far north. “At least it’s not snowing,” she muttered as she pushed through a nearby glass-fronted door into the magicians’ supply store she owned with two other witches in the older part of downtown. Bells hanging around the door pealed discordantly. She sent a small jolt of magic to silence them. “I heard that. Not the bells, but you. It’s supposed to snow this time of year. How could you possibly be pleased the weather patterns have gone to hell?” Jenna Neil stalked over to the coatrack where Colleen stood. Blonde hair, hacked off at shoulder level, framed a gamine’s face and shrewd, hazel eyes. Jenna towered over Colleen’s six foot height by a good four inches, and her broad shoulders would’ve made most men jealous. Between her trademark high-heeled boots and a scruffy embroidered red cloak tossed over skintight blue jeans, she looked as exotic as the anti-hex hoop earrings dangling from each ear. Colleen rolled her eyes, shook out her coat, and hung it on the rack. “Spare me your lecture about global warming, okay? It’s cold enough to snow. It just isn’t, for some reason.” “Mmph.” The line of Jenna’s jaw tensed. Indian spices wafted through the air, mingling with the scents of herbs, dried flowers, and desiccated body parts from small animals. Colleen’s stomach growled. Breakfast had been at six that morning—a long time ago. Pretty bad when even dried newt smelled like food. “Did you cook something?” she asked. “And if you did, is there any left?” A terse nod. Jenna turned away, walking fast. Colleen lengthened her normal stride to catch up. “Hey, sweetie. What happened? You can’t be in this big a snit over the weather.” Jenna kept walking, heading for the small kitchen at the back of the store. “A lot of things. I was just having a cup of tea. Shop’s been dead today.” She disappeared behind a curtain. Colleen glanced over one shoulder at the empty store. The phalanx of bells around the door would alert them if anyone stopped in. The minute she tugged the heavy, upholstery fabric that served as a kitchen door aside, the pungent tang of Irish whiskey made her eyes water. “You said tea.” “Yeah, well I spiked it.” Colleen grunted. “Smells like you took a bath in booze. What the fuck happened?” She grabbed the larger woman and spun her so they faced one another. “We got another pay-your-tithe-or-die e-mail from our Coven.” Jenna’s nostrils flared in annoyance. “So? That’s like the tenth one.” There were new policies none of them agreed with, so they’d joined with about twenty other witches and stopped paying the monthly stipend that supported their Coven’s hierarchy. “It’s not what’s bothering me.” Jenna pulled free from Colleen, tipped her cup, and took a slug of what smelled like mostly liquor. Colleen fought a desire to swat her. Getting to the point quickly had never been one of Jenna’s talents. She clamped her jaws together. “What is?” “Roz called with…problems.” Jenna turned and started toward the steep staircase ladder leading to her bedroom above the shop. “You can’t just drop that bomb and leave.” Colleen made another grab for Jenna to keep her in the kitchen. Worry for their friend ate at her. Of the three of them, Roz was by far the most volatile. “What happened? I thought she was in Missouri, or maybe it was Oklahoma, visiting that dishy dude she met online.” “Didn’t work out.” The corners of Jenna’s mouth twisted downward. Colleen quirked a brow, urging her friend to say more. Jenna plowed on. “He only wanted her for her magic. Turned out he preferred men.” “Aw, shit.” Colleen blew out a breath. “She must’ve been disappointed.” Half a snorting laugh bubbled past Jenna’s lips. “Maybe now she is. At the time, furious would’ve been closer to the mark.” Colleen’s throat tightened. “Crap! What’d she do? She didn’t hurt him, did she?” “Not directly. She turned him over to the local Coven.” “Thank God!” Colleen let go of Jenna and laid a hand over her heart. Roxanne Lantry was more than capable of killing anyone who pissed her off. It was how she ended up in Alaska. Roz hadn’t exactly been caught when her cheating husband and his two girlfriends went missing, but she hadn’t stuck around to encourage the authorities to question her, either. Colleen and Jenna had already left Seattle when that little incident went down. Roz repressed her antipathy for Alaska’s legendary foul weather and joined them. Magically, she was strong as an ox, and she had a hell of a temper. Colleen’s stomach growled again. Louder this time. It didn’t give a good goddamn about anything other than its empty state. She pushed past Jenna to the stove, lifted a lid, and peered into a battered aluminum pot. Curry blasted her. The spicy odor stung her eyes and made her nose run. “Whew. Potent. Mind if I help myself?” “Go ahead.” Jenna sat heavily in one of two chairs with a rickety wooden table between them. She picked up her mug and took another long swallow. Dish in hand, Colleen slapped it on the table in front of the other chair and went in search of a mug of her own. There weren’t any clean ones, so she plucked one out of the sink and rinsed it. Back at the stove, she tipped the teakettle. Thick, amber liquid spilled from its stubby snout into her waiting mug. Jenna waggled the whiskey bottle in her direction. “Nah.” Colleen settled at the table. “It would go right to my head. Maybe after I get some food on board.” She tucked in. After the first few mouthfuls, when the curry powder nearly annihilated her taste buds, the pea, potato, and ham mixture wasn’t half-bad. Jenna drank steadily, not offering anything by way of conversation. When Colleen’s dish was empty, she refilled her mug with tea, filched a couple of biscuits from the cupboard, and sat back down. “Are you going to talk to me?” “I suppose so.” Jenna’s words slurred slightly. Colleen cocked her head to one side. “I suggest you start now, before you forget how.” “Oh, please.” Jenna blew out a breath, showering the small space with whiskey fumes. Colleen waited. The other witch could be stubborn. Wheedling, cajoling, or urging wouldn’t work until she was good and ready to talk. Finally, after so long Colleen had nearly chewed a hole in her cheek, Jenna finally muttered, “Roz called.” Colleen ground her teeth together. “You already said that. It’s how you knew what happened with the guy.” Jenna nodded. “There’s more.” She picked up the whiskey, started to pour it into her mug, then apparently changed her mind and drank right from the bottle. “She’s in Seattle. Checked in with Witches’ Northwest, just to say hello, and because she wanted to touch base with people she’s known for a long time.” Another long pause. Colleen batted back a compulsion spell. It wasn’t nice to use those on your friends. She shoved her hands under her bottom to reduce the temptation. Jenna lowered her voice until Colleen had to strain to hear. “The Irichna demons are back.” “But our last confrontation wasn’t all that long ago. Only a few months. Sometimes when we best them, they’ve stayed gone for years.” Colleen shook her head. Even the sound of the word, Irichna, crackled against her ears, making them tingle unpleasantly. Irichna demons were the worst. Hands down, no contest. They worked for Abbadon, Demon of the Abyss. Evil didn’t get much worse than that. No wonder Jenna was drinking. Colleen held her hand out for the bottle—suddenly a drink seemed like a most excellent idea—and picked her words with care. “Did Roz actually sight one?” “Yeah. She also asked if we could come and help. More than asked. She came as close to begging as I’ve ever heard her.” “Erk. They have a whole Coven there. Several if you count all the ones in western Washington. Why do they need us?” Colleen belted back a stiff mouthful of whiskey. It burned a track all the way to her stomach where it did battle with all the curry she’d eaten. Jenna just shot her a look. “You know why.” Colleen swallowed again, hoping for oblivion, except it couldn’t come quick enough. She knew exactly why, but the answer stuck in her craw and threatened to choke her. The three of them were the last of a long line of demon assassins, witches with specialized powers, able to lure demons, immobilize them, and send them packing to the netherworld. When things worked right. They often didn’t, though, which was what killed off the other demon assassin witches. It didn’t help that demons as a group had been gathering power these last fifty years or so. Witches lived for a long time, but they were far from immortal, and demon assassin ability was genetic. She, Jenna, or Roz would have to produce children or that strain of magic would die out. So far, none of them had come anywhere close to identifying a guy who looked like husband material… Colleen looked at her hands. Even absent a husband, none of them had a shred of domesticity. Certainly not enough to saddle themselves with offspring. “What’s the matter?” Jenna grinned wickedly, clearly more than a little drunk. “Cat got your tongue too?” As if on cue, a blood-curdling meow rose from a shadowed corner of the kitchen and Bubba, Colleen’s resident familiar, padded forward. When he was halfway to them, he gathered his haunches beneath him and sprang to the table. It rocked alarmingly, and Jenna made a grab for her cup. The large black cat skinned his lips back from his upper teeth, bared his incisors, and hissed. “Oh, all right.” Colleen clamped her jaws tight and summoned the magic to shift Bubba to his primary form, a gnarled three-foot changeling. The air shimmered around him. Before it cleared, he swiped the liquor out of her hand and drained the bottle. “Would’ve been a good reason to leave you a cat,” Jenna mumbled. He stood on the table and glared at both of them, elbows akimbo, bottle still dangling from his oversized fingers. “If you’re going to fight demons, you have to take me with you.” “No, we don’t,” Colleen countered. “You don’t follow directions well,” Jenna said pointedly. “Isn’t that the truth?” Colleen rotated her head from side to side, starting to feel the whiskey. At least once when they’d humored the changeling, he’d almost gotten all of them killed. Problem was she couldn’t predict when he’d follow her orders, and when he’d decide on a different tack altogether. Then there were the times his fearlessness had saved them all. Bubba might be a wildcard, but he was her wildcard. “You forgot when I welcomed your spirit into my body—and kept it alive—while the healers worked on you.” Bubba eyed Colleen, sounding smug. “If you hadn’t decided to play hero, and needed to be rescued, the demons wouldn’t have injured me.” Colleen winced at the sour undertone in her voice. That incident had happened five years before. Maybe it was time she got over it. “Nevertheless.” He tossed his shaggy head, thick with hair as black as the cat’s. “When you conjured me from the barrows of Ireland, and bound me, we became a unit. You can’t go off and leave me here. It would be like leaving a part of yourself behind.” His dark eyes glittered with challenge. “I hate to admit it—” Jenna sounded a little less drunk “—but he’s right.” “See.” Bubba leered at them, jumped off the table, and waddled over to the stove with his bowlegged gait. Once there, he opened the oven, climbed onto its door, and peeked into the pot. He started to stick a hand inside. “Hold it right there, bud.” Colleen got to her feet, covered the distance to the stove, and dished him up some of the curry mixture. “Get some clothes on and you can have this.” He clambered down from his perch and over to several colorful canisters scattered around the house where she stashed outfits for him. Keeping Bubba clothed had been a huge problem until she’d hatched up a plan, and sewn him several pant and shirt combos with Velcro closures, since he didn’t like buttons or zippers. The changeling dressed quickly and took the bowl from her. “I could’ve gotten my own food.” “Better for the rest of us if you keep your paws out of the cook pot.” Jenna stood a bit unsteadily. “I’ll be right back.” Bubba stuffed food into his mouth with his fingers. “Where’s she going?” His words came out garbled as he chewed open-mouthed. Colleen looked away. “Probably to pee. Maybe to throw up. Um, look, Bubba, it might be wiser if we took a quick side trip to Ireland and released you.” She glanced sidelong at the changeling spirit she’d summoned during a major demon war forty years before. He’d been truly helpful then, especially after he’d mastered English, which hadn’t taken him all that long. In the intervening time, he’d mostly clung to his feline form, eating and keeping their shop free of mice and rats. They’d lived in Seattle the first ten years or so after he joined them, relocating to Alaska to conceal their longevity. She dragged the heels of her hands down her face, feeling tired. It was getting close to time to move again, but she didn’t want to think about it. Bubba shook his head emphatically. Food flew from the sides of his mouth. He scooped a glob off the floor and ate it anyway. “I have to agree to being released. I don’t want to go back to my barrow. I like it much better here.” Colleen sucked in a hollow breath, blew it out, and did it again. Bubba was right. Rules were rules. He’d had a choice at the front end. He could’ve refused her. Witches respected all living creatures. The ones on the good side of the road, anyway. No forced servitude for their familiars, despite rumors to the contrary. Jenna lurched back into the kitchen looking a little green. “You okay?” Colleen asked. “Yeah. I drank too much, that’s all.” She rinsed her mug at the sink, refilled it with tap water, and sat back down. “Did you two come up with a plan?” “I’m going.” Bubba left his dish on the floor and vaulted back onto the table. Jenna rolled red-rimmed eyes. “That was the discussion when I left.” “Your point?” Colleen swallowed irritation. “Nothing.” The other witch sounded sullen, but maybe she just didn’t feel well. “I offered to free him—” Colleen began. “I refused,” Bubba cut in. He shook his head. “No recognition for all my years of loyal service. Tsk. You should be—” “Stuff it.” Jenna glared at him. “We have bigger problems than your wounded ego.” He stuck out his lower lip, looking injured as only a changeling spirit could, but he didn’t say anything else. “I suppose we have to go to Seattle,” Colleen muttered, half to herself. “Don’t see any way around it.” Jenna worried her lower lip between her teeth. “What exactly did Roz say?” “We didn’t talk long. Her cellphone battery was almost dead.” A muscle twitched beneath Jenna’s eye. “She’d just stopped in at Coven Headquarters and the group mobbed her. Said we had to come. They’ve already lost about twenty witches to stealth demon attacks.” Colleen’s heart skipped a few beats. Twenty witches was a lot. Maybe a quarter of the Witches’ Northwest Coven. “Crap. When did the attacks start?” “Only a few days ago. They’d planned to call us, but saw it as goddess intervention when Roz showed up.” “Damn that Oklahoma cowboy.” Colleen pounded a fist into her open palm. “If his Coven doesn’t flatten him, I will.” “He wasn’t a cowboy.” Jenna’s voice held a flat, dead sound. “He was supposed to be a witch. You know, like us.” “Doesn’t matter.” “Do you want to close things up here, or should I try to get someone from our Coven to fill in at the shop?” Jenna looked pale, but the tipsy aspect had left her face. Colleen shook her head. “We haven’t sold enough in the last few weeks to make it worthwhile to pay someone to clerk for us.” “Okay.” Jenna’s hazel eyes clouded with worry. “When do you want to leave?” “If you asked Witches’ Northwest, we probably should’ve left three days ago.” “How are we getting there?” Bubba squared his hunched shoulders as much as he could and eyed Colleen. “Excellent question.” Jenna looked at Colleen too. She raised her hands in front of her face, palms out. “Stop it, you two. I can’t deal with the pressure.” Colleen clamped her jaws together and considered their options. Roz already had a car in Seattle. It didn’t make sense to drive their other one down, plus it would take too long. Flying with Bubba was impossible. He looked too odd in his gnome form and his cat form didn’t do well with the pressure changes. They had to teleport, which would seriously deplete their magic and mean they couldn’t fight so much as a disembodied spirit for at least twenty-four hours after they arrived. Jenna screwed her face into an apologetic scowl, apparently having come to the same conclusion. “Look, I’m sorry I’m not more help. There’s something about that particular mix of earth, fire, and air that I always bungle.” Air whistled through Colleen’s teeth. It had been so long since they’d teleported anywhere, she’d almost forgotten Jenna’s ineptitude with the requisite spell. “How about this? You go down to the basement and practice. I’ll get a few things together…” “What do you want me to do?” Bubba asked. “You can help me,” Jenna said. “I’ll do better if I have an object to practice with.” The changeling scrunched his low forehead into a mass of wrinkles. “Just don’t get me lost.” “Even if she does, I’ll be able to find you.” Colleen tried to sound reassuring. She was fond of her familiar. In many ways, he was very childlike. Heh! Maybe that’s why I’ve been so reluctant to have a kid. I already have one who’ll never grow up. The bells around the shop door clanged a discordant riot of notes. “Crap!” Jenna shot to her feet. “First customer in two days. I should’ve locked the damn door.” “Back to cat form.” Colleen flicked her fingers at Bubba, who shrank obligingly and slithered out of clothing, which puddled around him. She snatched up his shirt and pants and dropped them back into the canister. “I say,” a strongly accented male voice called out. “Is anyone here?” “I’ll take care of the Brit,” Colleen mouthed. “Take Bubba to the basement and practice.” She got to her feet and stepped past the curtain. “Yes?” She gazed around the dimly lit store for their customer. A tall, powerfully built man, wearing dark slacks and a dark turtleneck, strode toward her, a woolen greatcoat slung over one arm. His white-blond hair was drawn back into a queue. Arresting facial bones—sculpted cheeks, strong jaw, high forehead—captured her attention and stole her breath. He was quite possibly the most gorgeous man she’d ever laid eyes on. Discerning green eyes zeroed in on her face, caught her gaze, and held it. Magic danced around him in a numinous shroud. Strong magic. What was he? And then she knew. Daoine Sidhe. The man had to be Sidhe royalty. No wonder he was so stunning it almost hurt to look at him. Colleen held her ground. She placed her feet shoulder width apart and crossed her arms over her chest. “What can I help you with?” “Colleen Kelly?” Okay, so he knows who I am. Doesn’t mean a thing. He’s Sidhe. Could’ve plucked my name right out of my head. “That would be me. How can I help you?” she repeated, burying a desire to lick nervously at her lips. “Time is short. I’ve been hunting you for a while now. Come closer, witch. We need to talk.” Witch’s Bane Demon Assassins Book 2 Ann Gimpel   Dream Shadow Press 66K words   Release Date: 9/6/16   Genre: Urban Fantasy Romance   Urban Fantasy Romance with a heaping side of Hexes, Spells, and Magick!   Book Description:   Last of the demon assassin witches, Roz, Jenna, and Colleen have escaped disaster so far, but their luck is running low. Demons strike in the midst of Colleen’s wedding, and Roz launches desperate measures. As she shape-shifts to keep one step ahead of evil, at least it takes her mind off her other problems. Personal ones. She burned through a couple of marriages and hooked up with a string of loser men before, after, and in between. Though she wants to be happy for Colleen, the jealousy bug bit deep and hasn’t let go.   In Roz’s secret heart, she’s attracted to Ronin, one of the Daoine Sidhe. He’s so profanely beautiful she can barely breathe around him, but he’s also headstrong and arrogant. Not good partner material—unless she wants to end up dusting her heart off one more time.   Ronin set his sights on Roz the day he met her, and he can’t get her out of his mind. Unfortunately, she’s so prickly getting close to her requires scheming. He casts an enchantment to lure her at Colleen’s wedding, but she senses the spell and calls him on it. Demons swarm out of the ether before he can come up with another strategy. Killing them trumps everything. Roz is used to calling the shots. So is Ronin. Sparks fly. Tempers run hot, right along with an attraction too heady to ignore.   Amazon    BN    Kobo    iBooks    Google Play    ARe    Author’s Store   Excerpt from Witch’s Bane:   Roxanne Lantry—Roz to everyone who knew her—paced up and down the sodden lawn outside the huge old Victorian that housed the Witches’ Northwest Coven headquarters in Seattle. Rain pelted her from beneath a gunmetal sky, but it was better out here than inside. She fought an unfamiliar thickening at the back of her throat and balled her hands into fists. “I will not cry,” she muttered to an inquisitive ground squirrel that ran across her boot tops, but telling herself and controlling her emotions were two different things. One of her two best friends, Colleen Kelly, would be getting married in less than half an hour. Roz had been inside, in the midst of all the bride-craziness, but seeing Colleen swathed in cream-colored lace sent her into a tailspin. What the fuck is wrong with me? She kicked at a hummock of grass and yelped when it didn’t move, but the pain from her stubbed toes helped her focus. If she was honest, not an easy task when men were involved, she knew exactly what was bothering her. “Yeah,” she mouthed the words, lecturing herself. “Two failed marriages and a whole bunch of loser dudes before, after, and in between. I’m jealous and I need a good, swift boot in the backside. Just because Colleen finally stumbled across Mr. Right doesn’t lower my odds of ever finding someone who’s gorgeous and magical and worships me.” Now if I could only believe that… Roz was happy for Colleen and Duncan, the Daoine Sidhe she was marrying. They made a great couple, but surely there was enough connubial bliss in the universe to sprinkle a little her way too. Her last go-round with a strikingly handsome Oklahoman she’d met online had ended in fireworks when he’d admitted all he really wanted was to tap into her magical ability. When the rubber met the road, he didn’t even like women. Her stomach churned. She hated being made a fool of. She’d turned the guy in to his Coven for false advertising and laying a trap to delude a fellow magic wielder, but she doubted they’d done much to censure him. Water dripped off her nose. She stuck out her lower lip and blew upward, but the rain kept on dripping. Roz shook her fist at the low-hanging clouds, recognizing it for displacement activity. What she really wanted to do was pound her fist through the Oklahoman’s nice, straight nose. Enough of this. Give it a rest. That happened months ago. For Christ’s sake, I need to get moving, go inside, and trade my jeans and serape for fancy duds. Roz took a few deep breaths to settle her angst. She couldn’t show her tear-stained face to the world. She’d never live it down. When she closed her eyes, the Oklahoma asshole formed behind her lids, taunting her. Roz clenched her jaw and summoned a calming spell. It seemed like cheating, but time was short. As the wispy edges of magic caught her up, they soothed her frazzled nerves and she turned hard right and headed for the house at a brisk trot. She, Colleen, and Jenna Neil were the last of a long line of demon assassins. Witches with specialized powers, they lured Irichna demons, immobilized them, and sent them packing to the netherworld. When things worked right, she and her sister witches—along with Colleen’s familiar—shanghaied the demons and locked them behind the gate guarding the Ninth Circle of Hell. The demons didn’t go without a fight, though, which was what had killed off the other demon assassin witches. It didn’t help that demons as a group had been gathering power these last fifty years or so. Witches lived a long time, but they were far from immortal, and demon assassination ability was genetic. She, Jenna, or Colleen would have to produce children or that strain of magic would die out. None of them had a shred of domesticity, so no one had signed up for motherhood. At least not yet. I can’t put two weeks together without a major demon battle these days. How the hell could I take time off to raise a kid? Rain ran down her neck and Roz shivered. Thinking about demons chilled her bones. Realizing she’d stopped walking, she plodded toward the house again and forced her thoughts to the magicians’ supply store she owned with Colleen and Jenna in Fairbanks, Alaska. The other two witches had moved there months ahead of her. She hated the idea of all that snow and cold and winter nights that lasted twenty hours, but she’d boxed herself into a dicey situation and hadn’t had much choice. Her temper, never very controllable on a good day, had gotten the better of her, and she made short work of her cheating husband and his two—yup, count ’em—girlfriends. After that, she’d packed up and headed her aging Subaru north. Next stop, Fairbanks… That had happened a few years ago. So many, it was almost time to move on before anyone noticed she and the other witches didn’t seem to grow any older. Roz shook her head, not wanting to go there, either. She forced her mind back to the special skill she shared with Colleen and Jenna. She hated to admit it, but demons held the high cards these days, and she had no idea how to even the odds. Aren’t I just the queen of cheerful? She gave herself a mental shake with instructions to snap out of her funk. Roz made it to the huge house and tugged on one of the ground level doors. When it didn’t open, she hit it with a jolt of magic, and the deadbolt snicked aside. She stopped long enough to shake water off her and then loped down a long corridor with a concrete floor toward one of the old mansion’s many stairwells. Fluorescent lights, recessed into the ceiling, gave off a sickly yellow gleam that matched her sour mood. She’d just begun climbing upward when a rush of footsteps sounded from the hallway below. “There you are,” Bubba, Colleen’s familiar, cried out and leapt up the stairs after her. Roz glanced over a shoulder and saw he was in his normal form: a three-foot-tall changeling with oversized feet, long arms, and a bow-legged gait. His shaggy, black hair had been brushed until it shone, and his dark eyes glittered mischievously. Colleen had a hell of a time keeping him dressed, but today he sported black pants and a black jacket over a white shirt. “Yes,” Roz countered, still feeling out of sorts. “Here I am. The question is why aren’t you upstairs with everyone else?” “Colleen got worried. She sent me to hunt you down.” Bubba crossed his arms over his chest, looking pleased with himself. Roz rolled her eyes. “Bubba, look—” “Uh-uh.” He uncrossed his arms and waggled a finger at her. “Niall. Remember, you all promised to use my real name from now on.” “So we did. Crap! I don’t have time for this.” She unkinked her neck and trudged upward. “No kidding,” he agreed. “Everyone’s here, and you’re not even dressed yet.” Rather than focus on her shortcomings, Roz changed the subject. “You’re looking pretty spiffy, bud.” “Do you like it?” “What I saw of it. It’s sort of like a black tuxedo, but with Velcro instead of buttons.” “I hate buttons.” Roz grinned in spite of herself. “I know you do, sweetie.” She came to the third floor landing and pushed the stairwell door open, holding it for the changeling. “Run and tell Colleen I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.” Without waiting for an answer, she walked briskly halfway down the long hall and let herself into her bedroom. Locking the door behind her, she unlaced her wet boots and toed them off. Next she shucked her sodden clothes, ducked into the bathroom, and gathered strands of coal black hair, pulling it into a ponytail with both hands. Once she had her hair together, she wrapped her head in a towel. She didn’t believe in hair dryers, so once she’d soaked as much water as she could into the towel, she grabbed her comb, made several sections, and plaited her knee-length, straight-as-a-stick hair, weaving it into a pseudo-French braid. Before she left the bathroom, she inspected her face in the mirror. She never wore makeup because it made her look like a clown. Her bronzed skin and stark bone structure declared her Native American blood more clearly than words could have. She smoothed her eyebrows with a few drops of water and considered which of two outfits to wear. Colleen had said it didn’t matter to her, so long as Roz didn’t show up in her usual tattered blue jeans and combat boots. With a snort of amusement, she padded back into the bedroom and pulled a long, beaded black buckskin skirt off a hanger. She stepped into it and laced the side fastening. Next came a turquoise deerskin top, also beaded, that clung to her like a second skin. In addition to not bothering with makeup, she also didn’t care for underthings, so the outline of her breasts was clearly visible through the soft leather. She slipped a heavy silver and turquoise necklace over her head, arranging her braid on top of it, and grabbed a matching ring off the dresser. The only thing left was her moccasins. Roz wriggled her feet into them, enjoying the way the deerskin warmed and hugged her feet. Jenna always wore high heels, but Roz had never understood how she could tolerate them. They’d had a few heated discussions years ago before Roz finally gave up. “To each her own,” she told the mirror. Satisfied she looked presentable, she focused the threads of her calming spell, strengthened it a bit to make certain she’d last through the ceremony without breaking down and bawling like an idiot, and let herself into the hallway. The buzz of a crowd reached her from the main floor. She glanced toward the stairs and then the other way, wondering if Colleen was still up here. Figuring it couldn’t hurt to find out, she walked two doors down and knocked. The door flew open almost immediately and she looked into an accusing set of pale blue eyes. “It’s about fucking time,” Colleen exclaimed. Auburn hair with lily of the valley woven into it swirled around her, falling to waist level. At six feet, Colleen was normally a good four inches shorter than Roz, but today she wore heels and they were of a height. “Huh?” Roz murmured, confused. “I almost went downstairs. I had no idea you were waiting for me.” “We’d planned to all go down together.” Colleen sounded sullen. “You know, like a proper wedding party.” “If we were all that proper,” Roz said, “Jenna and I would be wearing matching—” Jenna made chopping motions with both hands and unfolded her well-rounded frame from off the bed. Blonde hair, hacked off at shoulder level, framed a gamine’s face with shrewd, hazel eyes. Rather than her standard, thrift store couture, today she wore a short beige silk skirt, a lacy blouse, and her trademark high-heeled boots. Huge, golden hoops graced her ears. She walked to Roz’s side and looped an arm through hers. “Don’t think anything of it. The bride—” she waved an airy hand Colleen’s way “—has been antsy as a scalded cat all day.” Colleen closed her teeth together with an audible clack. “Maybe I’m making a mistake.” Roz and Jenna turned to stare at her. “What?” Jenna asked, incredulous. “Hey, if you don’t want him—” Roz began. “No shit,” Jenna interrupted. “Tall, blond, drop dead gorgeous. Those green eyes are to die for and those shoulders.” She made panting noises. “The couple of times I saw him without a shirt, I almost came just watching his muscles rustle beneath his skin when he walked.” Colleen rolled her eyes. “You two are impossible. Can’t a bride have a case of jitters without her two closest friends turning into vultures?” “No.” Roz looked down her nose at Colleen. “Considering how long and hard I’ve hunted for decent partner material…” She let her words trail off before the extent of her jealousy leaked out. The door blew inward and Bubba marched in, hands on his hips. “Come on. Everyone’s ready.” He lowered his voice, but not by much. “I think Duncan’s worried that you—” he pointed at Colleen “—got cold feet.” “She nearly did,” Jenna muttered. “Aw, crap. Guess I need to go tell everyone the wedding’s off.” Bubba did an about face, but before he could sprint through the open door, Colleen snatched him up. “You’ll do no such thing.” She swallowed audibly. “I’m ready. I guess.” “Let go of me.” Bubba writhed in her grasp. “Not before you promise to keep your mouth shut.” Roz smirked. Circumspection was not exactly the changeling’s long suit. She walked to Bubba’s other side. “I’ll take him.” She held out her arms. “I can walk,” the changeling said with a great deal of dignity, “as soon as Colleen lets go of me.” “You haven’t promised,” Colleen said. “Please, sweetie. It’s important to me. A girl needs to have some things stay private.” He blew out an annoyed sounding breath. “All right. I promise.” Colleen relaxed her grip. Shaking himself like a dog might have, the gnome-like changeling chuckled. “Too bad. Something like that’s a prime piece of gossip.” Colleen broke into a broad grin. “Right up your alley, eh?” Roz made shooing motions. “Let’s get going. You don’t want all that food the Sidhe catered to get cold do you?” “I don’t care about food,” Colleen mumbled. “I’m so nervous I probably won’t be able to eat a thing.” “Well I do,” Jenna said. “I’m with Roz. Let’s get this show on the road.” “Have a couple belts of whiskey,” Roz suggested. “It’ll do wonders for your nerves.” The hallway air brightened and shimmered. When it cleared, Titania, Queen of Faerie, shook floor-length silvery hair out of her ice blue eyes and pushed it over her shoulders. A diaphanous gown, more jewels than fabric, floated around her tall, thin frame. “Is there some problem?” she inquired with asperity, and her gaze zeroed in on Colleen. Colleen half curtseyed. Roz considered it, but didn’t because Titania wasn’t her queen. “No problem at all.” Colleen inclined her head. “We were just on our way.” The Queen of Faerie’s severe expression softened. “Thank the goddess. For a minute there, I was afraid you were going to break Duncan’s heart.” She strode forward and thumped Colleen’s chest with a bony forefinger. “If you ever hurt that boy, I’ll hunt you down and make you very sorry.” “That boy—” Colleen held the queen’s gaze “—is a thousand-year-old man.” Titania furled her perfect silver brows. “Details. Besides, it’s rude to contradict me. Privilege of age and rank and all that. Let’s go. I haven’t performed a marriage in centuries. I’m quite looking forward to it.” Colleen’s eyes widened. “I thought Naomi, the leader of this Coven, was going to join Duncan and me.” “We both have roles to play.” Titania’s mouth twitched. “Surely you didn’t think I’d let one of my own be bound in marriage without my magic involved.” “I have no idea what I thought,” Colleen managed, but she looked ready to throttle the queen. Before things got any tenser and Colleen started in about it being her wedding, Roz herded them out the door and down the hallway. Colleen stopped for a moment at the head of the stairway, tension rolling off her in waves. Roz wrapped an arm around her. “It will be fine,” she whispered. “Just fine.” After a quick hug, she let go. As if those six words did the trick—or maybe it was the hug—Colleen swept down the long, curved staircase, looking regal. Roz, Jenna, and Titania jostled one another as they made their way down the twenty-five steps. Bubba made an end run around them and fell in behind Colleen, where he picked up her lace train. They marched through the dining area where caterers and witches bustled about laying out a spread of food that smelled delicious, into a large, luxurious room that took up much of the bottom floor of the old Victorian. At one point, they’d talked about having the ceremony outside, but the weather put the kibosh on that idea. Roz wondered why they’d wasted their breath even considering an out-of-doors event. It was the winter solstice in Seattle. She bet there’d never been one when it wasn’t raining like crazy—or snowing. Chairs lined the wood-paneled great room, and a fire burned merrily in a huge stone fireplace that took up one end of the sumptuous space. Old-fashioned chandeliers were festooned with hundreds of blazing candles. Witches sat on one side of a center aisle, Daoine Sidhe on the other. Roz guessed between three and four hundred people were in attendance—more Sidhe than witches. Everyone turned in their seats to stare at Colleen, and a collective aaaaah surged through the room. Roz clamped down on a grin. Colleen really did make a lovely bride, with her Irish complexion and red tresses. The creamy lace dress was perfect. White would have made her look washed out. Titania strode around all of them and took her place at the head of the room. Roz noted with amusement that Naomi held her ground when Titania tried to push her to one side. Before she and Jenna left Colleen to find their seats, her gaze landed on Duncan—Lord Regis—and her heart nearly stopped. All Sidhe had an ethereal beauty, but Duncan practically glowed. Dressed in a black tuxedo with a crimson cummerbund and diamond studs, he cut an impressive figure with his high forehead, sculpted cheekbones, and strong jaw. Longish blond hair had been braided in tight rows, but the severe style suited him and make him look like an ancient warrior. Roz averted her gaze, afraid he’d catch her staring, but he only had eyes for his bride. She said a quick prayer asking the goddess’s blessing on their union and turned toward the witches’ side of the room. Because Ronin came up from her other side, she didn’t notice the Sidhe leader until he wove an arm around her shoulders. “I saved you a chair next to me.” Her heart slammed into double-time rhythm. She’d met Ronin two weeks before at his castle in northern England, and they’d shared several spirited conversations over meals. Something magical and electric had sparked between them, but she’d chalked it up to everyone’s emotions running full tilt. She’d just escaped demons by the skin of her teeth, and he was dealing with shame or guilt—or whatever he felt—about forcing witches into being demon assassins two centuries before. While his attentiveness had been welcome—and more than a little flattering—she’d been more focused on her relief at being alive than anything else. Besides, after the Oklahoman, she’d sworn off men—forever. Ronin smiled, not looking anything but glad to see her, and her heart did a funny little flip-flop, in addition to beating much too fast. Dark hair hung loose to his shoulders, and his blue eyes twinkled warmly. Every bit as handsome as Duncan, he was dressed in formal clothing, black with a blue cummerbund, and what might have been ruby studs. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m supposed to sit over there.” She gestured in the general direction of the witches’ side of the room. “No one will notice,” he assured her and hooked his hand beneath her arm. Roz didn’t fully understand why she let him guide her to a padded straight-backed chair near the front of the room and help her into it, but there was something irresistible about his energy. Too late, she recognized a mild compulsion spell. Anger spiked, but now wasn’t the place to give in to it. With every shred of self-discipline at her disposal, she forced her attention to Duncan and Colleen reciting their vows, and to Naomi, who’d muscled her way in before Titania could get rolling. When Ronin draped an arm around her shoulders, she shot him a harsh look that made him move it damned fast. Good, she thought. It’s about time the Sidhe realize their days of pushing witches around are over. Yes, he was gorgeous, and he seemed interested in her, but the last thing she needed was some overbearing mage mucking things up. She still wasn’t quite certain how Colleen’s marriage to Duncan would impact her and Jenna. They’d always been kind of like The Three Musketeers, demon style. The permanent addition of a Sidhe was bound to have some effect. Exactly what was hard to gauge. Who am I kidding? We didn’t just get Duncan. We’re stuck with his kinfolk now too. All of them. She bit back a sigh. If the series of meetings a couple of weeks before in the U.K. was any indication, she, Jenna, and Colleen would have to fight to be recognized as anything remotely close to equal. Roz snuck a glance at Ronin. He sat straight in his seat, his profile heartbreakingly beautiful. His long-fingered hands were clasped together in his lap. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering what they’d feel like stroking her body. Warm. Electric. Compelling. Maybe I should give him a chance, a tiny, inner voice piped up. Bosh. Roz tried for a stern note, but the other part of her brain wouldn’t shut up. Witches Rule Demon Assassins Book 3 Ann Gimpel   Dream Shadow Press 68K words   Release Date: 9/26/16   Genre: Urban Fantasy Romance   Urban Fantasy Romance with a heaping side of Hexes, Spells, and Magick!   Book Description:   Jenna’s a special witch, sort of, when her magic works, which it often doesn’t. One of three remaining demon assassins, she and her sister witches, Roz and Colleen, are Earth’s only hedge against being overrun by Hell’s minions. On the heels of Roz’s and Colleen’s weddings, Jenna is headed for the U.K. when a demon confronts her. Any other witch could teleport out of the plane, but not her.   Frustration about her limited power eats at her. It would be pathetic to get killed for lack of skills a teenager could master.   Tristan is a Sidhe warrior, but his primary gift is attunement to others’ emotions. He fell hard for Jenna, but hasn’t had an opportunity to act on their attraction beyond a few kisses because she returned to Alaska, and he’s been in the field fighting demons.   As seer for the Sidhe, Kiernan is haunted by visions, particularly an apocalyptic sending that seems to be coming true. A confirmed bachelor, he doesn’t understand his attraction to Jenna, but it’s so strong he can’t fight it. After a while, he doesn’t even try, despite recognizing Tristan’s claim to her.   Startling truths surface about Jenna’s magic, and then there’s the problem that she’s falling in love with two very different men. At first she believes she has to pick one of them, but her spirit refuses to walk away from either. It’s impossible to choose between a seer with dreams in his eyes and a beautiful man who intuits her every need. Standing on the verge of Earth’s destruction, will she defy convention and follow the song in her heart?   Amazon    BN    Kobo    iBooks    ARe    Google Play    Author’s Store     Excerpt from Witches Rule:   Jenna Neil sank heavily onto her airplane seat and kicked off her high heels, shoving them beneath the seat in front of her. With a small sigh of relief, she rotated her ankles to take the pressure off her aching arches. She’d always loved heels—the higher the better—and insisted on wearing them, never mind they definitely lacked a comfort factor. Once she’d shot past six feet, she figured it didn’t matter if she added a few inches to her already overbearing height. A flight attendant leaned over to hand her a pillow and blanket. Jenna tucked the pillow behind her head as she listened to the safety briefing and estimates of their arrival time in London. She closed her eyes, but it didn’t ease how tired and gritty they felt, and smoothed her too-short denim skirt down her thighs. A red wool sweater and matching denim jacket finished off her outfit. She’d been so excited about getting out of Alaska and away from the layers she was forced to wear through the winter, she’d probably underdressed for the current jaunt. Less trendy clothes were tucked in her checked luggage, but they weren’t exactly accessible. The last few days hadn’t offered much opportunity for rest. She, Colleen Kelly-Regis, and Roxanne Lantry-Redstone—Roz to everyone who knew her well—were the last of the demon assassin witches. Having escaped Irichna demons by a ridiculously narrow margin—again—the three of them were on their way to the U.K. where they could do it all over again. Jenna grinned ruefully. Demons running amok through the British countryside had thrown witches and the Daoine Sidhe together after two hundred years of enmity. It had also netted impossibly hunky husbands for her sister witches, but that was beside the point. Staying alive was a much more front and center problem. Because Irichna demons had become so much more aggressive, everyone but her thought it would be best to travel separately. She hadn’t agreed, but she’d been the one dissenting vote. As far as Jenna was concerned, there was always strength in numbers, but the others were convinced their current strategy would confuse the demons long enough for everyone to regroup on the eastern side of the Atlantic. Colleen and Roz were teleporting with their husbands. Niall, Colleen’s Irish changeling familiar, was making his own way back home along with two Scottish changelings, Llyr and Krae. Jenna had never been much good at teleporting, so she’d opted to fly commercial. It would place her arrival at least twelve hours after everyone else, but she could live with that. At least the first leg of her journey, from Fairbanks to Seattle, and thence to New York, had been uneventful. Thinking about Irichna made her shiver, so she unfolded her blanket and draped it around her shoulders. Demons didn’t get much worse than Irichna. As Abbadon’s chosen henchmen, they played for keeps, and Abbadon was the biggest and baddest of Hell’s denizens, so nothing was off limits. Demon assassin witches had been a craw in his throat for a long time, and lately he’d upped the ante to get rid of them—permanently. Them means me, and I’d do well not to forget that. Jenna blew out a weary breath. One of her not-so-distant ancestors had been forced into demon containment two hundred years ago by the Sidhe, breaking every rule that bound magic-wielders, but the Sidhe hadn’t cared. In the intervening years, demons had managed to kill every single witch with demon-assassin ability—except for her, Roz, and Colleen. The Sidhe were primed to take back some responsibility for ferrying Irichna to the Ninth Circle of Hell where the gatekeeper locked them away, but that hadn’t exactly happened yet. She gritted her teeth and unclenched hands she’d balled into fists around the edge of the thin airline blanket. The aircraft backed out of its slip and headed for one of the many runways at JFK Airport. While it would be lovely to have help with the demons, working with the Sidhe held its own set of problems. For one thing, most of them were insufferably autocratic, which was how Jenna’s great-grandmother had ended up being suckered into picking up the demon banner in the first place. Even though Titania, Queen of Faerie, appeared marginally tolerant of Colleen’s and Roz’s marriages to Sidhe now, she’d given Duncan quite a bit of grief over his proposed marriage to Colleen at the front end of things. By the time Ronin, the de facto Sidhe leader, made it clear he’d set his sights on Roz, Titania had backed down a few notches, probably because they were beset by Irichna. Jenna thinned her lips into a hard line. Hundreds of years before, Ronin’s human partner had died in childbirth, and the child along with her. Apparently, both the Queen and King of Faerie made it clear Ronin had sunk himself by choosing to marry someone outside his race. In the face of their indifference, Ronin had carried his grief alone. It’s just like it is with humans. Everybody’s got to have somebody to look down on… Jenna tamped back a cynical grin. The Sidhe had made strides accepting other races, but they had a way to go before they moved beyond their intolerant past. Jenna pictured her friends’ husbands, and a small sigh escaped. Like all the Daoine Sidhe, Duncan Regis and Ronin Redstone were heartbreakingly stunning. Duncan’s blond good looks and green eyes provided a counterpart for Ronin’s dark hair and deep blue gaze. When Jenna scratched the surface and did a little soul-searching, she had to admit she’d never expected to find a permanent partner. Girls like her—well rounded and obscenely tall—weren’t exactly in demand. Colleen was beautiful with her waist length auburn hair and pale blue eyes, and Roz was unusual and striking. Her Native American heritage and long, lean frame turned heads whenever she passed by. Guess I’m the odd witch out these days… Jenna pressed her lips together. It remained to be seen how her friends’ marriages would impact their lives. Some things would have to change because she couldn’t quite envision Duncan and Ronin simply moving in to her Fairbanks, Alaska, home along with their new wives. For one thing, all the Sidhe maintained amazing abodes in the U.K. Places that resembled castles more than houses. Jenna reined in her thoughts. There were a lot of unknowns, but the main problem would be surviving the next few weeks. Once they got the Irichna on the run—if that were even possible—then she could figure out more prosaic things, like if she’d be the only one still living in Fairbanks and running their magicians’ supply shop. Before the thought even finished forming, she knew that arrangement wouldn’t work. She, Roz, and Colleen had to stay together, and if the others insisted on remaining in the U.K., well then she wouldn’t have much choice in the matter. If she returned to Alaska by herself, she’d be a sitting duck for Irichna to swoop down and overpower her. She shivered again and considered asking for a second blanket. In an attempt to divert herself and maybe unwind, though it seemed unlikely, Jenna started to push her seat back and then remembered she wasn’t supposed to quite yet. The plane’s engines were revving, but they hadn’t left the ground. She heard the captain instruct the flight attendants to prepare the cabin for takeoff and tried to relax in her plush first-class seat. If the goddess was good to her, maybe she’d catch a few hours of sleep before the plane landed. A flurry of supernatural energy caught the edges of her attention, and Jenna’s gut twisted into a sour knot. She sat up straight and craned her neck to scan the cabin, defensive magic at the ready. Her eyes widened in disbelief as Krae’s unmistakable form shimmered into being, and the changeling bounded into the empty seat next to Jenna. Her long, bright red hair hung loose, and her eyes shone like emeralds. Krae’s stocky body was draped in wide-bottomed green silk pants and an embroidered black tunic. As was usual with changelings, her feet were bare. The creatures drew their power from the earth, and Jenna assumed they didn’t want layers of leather or rubber or neoprene between themselves and their magical well. With their three-foot height, broad shoulders, and longish arms, they looked like a missing link between humans and the great apes. “What are you doing here?” Jenna kept her voice low. “Don’t worry,” Krae replied, not exactly answering Jenna’s question. “No one can see me except you.” “Where are Niall and Llyr?” “Niall joined Colleen and Duncan, and Llyr is with Roz and Ronin.” Of course, why didn’t I think of that? Jenna cleared her throat. “Why did you make different plans?” Krae cocked her head to one side and crinkled her gnome-like face, making her look even more outlandish. “We discussed it and decided you might need help.” A corner of her mouth curved into a frown. “Personally, I thought it was a bit overdrawn, but Niall was most insistent about remaining with Colleen.” “Can he join her teleport spell after it’s already set in motion?” Jenna was curious, but if Krae could teleport into this aircraft, maybe the other two could tap into a spell she’d always considered sacrosanct. “Not directly, but he communicated with Colleen telepathically, and she altered her destination to pick him up. Llyr did the same with Roz and Ronin.” Krae dusted her palms together and grinned. “Nothing easier.” The changeling swept her agate-green gaze around the first-class cabin. “When will they feed us?” “As soon as we pass through ten thousand feet, which won’t be long since we just took off.” Jenna paused for a beat. “If you weren’t thrilled about the plans to get to the U.K., why didn’t you speak up back in Alaska?” “We did. No one listened to us. Roz and Ronin were so wrapped up in lust and pawing at each other, all they wanted to do was get to his manor house as fast as they could.” “Well, they did just get married,” Jenna pointed out in defense of her friend. “And I don’t recall anyone but me voicing concerns about splitting up to travel.” “That’s because you weren’t paying attention, either. Look, sweetie, if the Irichna win, no one will be tupping anyone.” Despite being much shorter than Jenna, the changeling managed to send a withering glance her way. “Point taken.” Jenna shot an equally scathing glance back. “Next time, if you feel strongly about something and no one’s paying attention, talk louder.” “Rehashing the past is a waste of time.” Krae bounced up and down in her seat. Jenna considered telling her to fasten her seatbelt, but if no one could see her, there wasn’t much point. “Be sure to take everything they offer foodwise,” the changeling instructed. “I’m hungry.” “Shouldn’t be a problem since I’m not.” Jenna lapsed into silence. “Why so glum, witchy girl?” Krae trained her ancient eyes, which probably didn’t miss a trick, on Jenna. “Oh, no particular reason.” Jenna stifled a snort and rolled her eyes. “I find facing death several times a day downright exhilarating.” A bell sounded, and the fasten seat belt icon winked out. Moments later, the first-class cabin flight attendant leaned close. “Are you all right?” “Why wouldn’t I be?” Jenna snapped and then winced at how surly she sounded. “I heard you talking and thought maybe you needed something.” The flight attendant smiled encouragingly. Airlines had moved past using Barbie clones long since, and this woman was middle-aged with streaks of gray in her dark, shoulder-length hair, the beginnings of wrinkles around her blue eyes, and a kind expression. “Food,” Krae prodded, not bothering with telepathic speech. “Thanks for being concerned.” Jenna managed a genuine smile for the cabin attendant. “I am hungry, so snacks would be appreciated whenever you get around to serving.” “Of course.” The woman smiled back. “I’m Suzanne.” She tapped the nametag hanging around her neck. “Just press your call button if you need anything. Other than that, relax and enjoy your flight.” “You could’ve been a bit more assertive about our dinner,” Krae complained. “I’m guessing they can’t hear you, either.” Jenna switched to telepathic speech. “Of course they can’t.” Krae blew out an annoyed-sounding breath. “Look, witchy-girl, draw a spot of magic and shield your speech. That way no one will bother us, and we can talk.” Feeling like an idiot because she hadn’t come up with the idea herself, Jenna drew the requisite spell before she spoke again. “I was actually hoping to sleep.” “You can do that after we eat and talk.” Jenna turned to face the changeling and raised a quizzical brow. “This is starting to sound bigger than you. Whose idea was it for the three of you to split up, and for you to join me?” Krae’s generous mouth twitched into a grin, and she jabbed a finger in the air between them. “Smart witch.” “You didn’t exactly answer me.” “No. I didn’t.” Jenna pressed her tongue against her teeth to manage her annoyance. The last thing she needed was a rousing game of twenty questions, so she trained what she hoped was a non-confrontational gaze on Krae and shrugged. “We have seven hours, feel free to take your time.” The changeling’s green eyes sparkled with mischief. “You’re burning up with curiosity. I can smell it.” Jenna didn’t bother to point out she was so trashed from the past few weeks that she doubted she had enough energy to burn up with anything. Suzanne handed her a bottle of water and a tray with an assortment of appetizers. The flight attendant had no sooner moved on to the next passenger than Krae bent over the tray and dug in. The changeling looked up after inhaling half the finger sandwiches and most of the nuts. “Sure you don’t want any of this?” “Help yourself.” Jenna adjusted her seat so it tilted backward, twisted the cap off the water, and drank deeply. “Beer, wine, or a cocktail, miss?” a masculine voice asked. Jenna glanced up at a cabin attendant she hadn’t seen before. He was tall and rangy with very blue eyes, white-blond hair, and a gold band on the third finger of his left hand. She swallowed a smile. With looks like his, he might have begun wearing the ring in self-defense, to slow the tide of women throwing themselves at his feet. He arched a brow and gestured toward the drink cart. “Um, maybe a cup of coffee with a side of Irish whiskey.” “Excellent choice.” He beamed at her, displaying very white, very even teeth. He may have winked, but she wasn’t quite certain. “Would you care for cream or sugar?” “Both.” Once he handed her drink over, she uncapped the small bottle of spirits and dumped a little into her cup. She’d traveled through so many time zones already, it scarcely mattered whether it was evening yet, and the liquor might have a salutary effect. The steward’s gaze traveled up her body in frank appraisal before he moved to the passenger across the aisle. Jenna’s face warmed a few degrees. What the hell? Was he sizing her up for a quickie in one of the plane’s johns? Krae twisted her head and stared at the man. The air glistened wetly where the changeling deployed magic. She wasn’t particularly subtle, and the man’s spine stiffened, but he didn’t turn around. “He felt that.” Jenna pitched her mind voice just for Krae and shielded it to boot. “Indeed he did.” Krae narrowed her eyes. “Do you know what he is?” Jenna shook her head. “Pity,” the changeling went on, “neither do I.” “I don’t think it’s a good idea to send more magic his way,” Jenna murmured. “As it is, what you did tipped him off. How did you know something was wrong?” “How else?” Krae shrugged. “I almost missed it, but something…odd drew my attention when he looked at you. If he’d been human, his gaze would have held more heat. Instead there was an…unnatural hunger.” She hesitated. “More like he was relieved he’d found you rather than wanting sex.” A shudder iced Jenna’s blood. Unlike Roz and Colleen, she couldn’t simply teleport off the airplane. Her heartbeat sped up. “Maybe you should leave,” she told Krae. “No point in both of us being trapped.” “Uh-uh. We hold our ground for now. It’s possible his presence has nothing to do with you.” “Not very fucking likely.” Krae picked up another small sandwich and stuffed it into her mouth. Jenna snuck a peek at the steward just in time to see him disappear through the curtain separating first class from the remainder of the aircraft. Because she was desperate for information, she sent a tendril of magic snaking outward and yanked it back as soon as she determined the man wasn’t an Irichna disguised as human. Duncan had run up against one masquerading as a priest near the Witches’ Northwest Coven headquarters in Seattle. It had lured two female teenagers and would have drained them of life if Duncan hadn’t intervened. As it was, he wasn’t certain either had survived because he’d left them at a hospital and hadn’t hung around long enough to find out. Jenna ran options through her mind, not liking any of them. She didn’t want to end up in a pitched battle inside the aircraft. Hell, they’d probably lock her away as a terrorist the minute the plane landed, and Irichna would pick her off from her cell. “I was serious,” Krae’s out loud voice intruded. “There’s at least a small possibility he’s simply some sort of mage. He might have gotten a magical hit off your aura and was curious.” “What did you want to talk about earlier?” Jenna changed the subject because she could speculate about the mystery steward from now until he made a move against her, and it wouldn’t change the outcome, other than making her more aware to watch out for him. “How much do you know about my race?” Krae countered, answering Jenna by asking a question of her own. “Mostly what I’ve gleaned from living with Niall for forty years. Why?” Krae popped the last sandwich into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “We’ve always known we would have a key role to play in major battles against the Irichna. It’s written in our histories, and we’ve prepared as best we could.” Jenna drew her brows together. “Niall never mentioned it.” “It’s quite possible he didn’t know. We’ve done our damnedest to keep that particular bit of knowledge quiet, so the Irichna wouldn’t target us before the time came to play our part. Not that we didn’t inform our people—and try to coach them—but Niall’s been gone for a good many years.” Jenna rolled her shoulders to offset the iron bar of tension sitting between them. “You sound like a preacher threatening the latter days are nearly upon us.” “They are.” Krae’s expression turned deadly serious. “More whiskey, miss?” Jenna started at the sound of the steward’s voice. He’d returned to the cabin so quietly, she hadn’t heard him. “Um, no.” She resisted the temptation to look at him. It would give her more information, but that was a two-way street. “As you will, miss.” He pushed the drink cart past her. It made quite a bit of noise, which led her to suspect he’d used magic to muffle his presence earlier. How long had he studied her without her knowing? Why hadn’t Krae sensed him? Worse, he’d apparently made his way back to the front of the plane, pushed the rattling cart past her, and served other passengers without alerting her to his presence. Not good. Jenna shielded her mind—just in case—and clamped her jaws together when he sashayed into the curtained galley alcove between first class and the cockpit. Her heart thudded against her ribcage, and her throat was dry. It was looking like she’d need to do something, but what would attract the least attention? Krae uttered a muted expletive in Gaelic, bolted from her seat, and whisked after the steward. Jenna stared after the changeling with her mouth hanging open. She pushed upright, remembered her seatbelt, and fumbled with the clasp. By the time she was free of it, a flash of multicolored light practically blinded her, flaring above, below, and through the curtain. Heedless of the other first class passengers, who couldn’t sense expended magic anyway, she threw her power wide open. Jenna didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until it whistled from between her clenched teeth. She drew her lips back, hissing in satisfaction once she realized the blast of power had come from Krae, not the man. Balancing on the balls of her stocking-clad feet, Jenna strode forward and pushed past the curtain. The steward was shaking his head back and forth, his face screwed into a mask of pain. Power flashed from the changeling’s hands. “No more,” he rasped, tottering from foot to foot. “I won’t hurt either of you.” Jenna dragged an invisibility spell over all of them, layered a don’t look here spell over that, and prayed to the goddess no one would enter the small, enclosed space for the next few minutes. “What are you?” She shoved the question hard into his mind. “I already figured that out,” Krae said sourly. “He’s a minor demon sent to keep an eye on you and report back.” “I already told you I hadn’t,” he whined. “And I won’t. You can bind me with magic.” “That’s not good enough,” Jenna growled. “Demons lie.” “So do changelings and witches.” He shot her a venomous look that belied his promises of non-interference. “We’re wasting time,” Krae said and settled into a low chant. A look of horror twisted the steward’s handsome face into something unrecognizable. He tried to walk past them but clearly couldn’t move. The air thickened, took on a blackish tinge, and stank of ozone just before smoke rose from the creature and he vanished. Jenna drew back, impressed. Whatever Krae had done was magic well beyond her own abilities. Footsteps sounded on the far side of the curtain. Suzanne. Jenna recognized her energy and ducked into a passenger restroom. If Krae was powerful enough to banish the demon, shielding herself from the flight attendant should prove trivial. Kicking herself for being sloppy, Jenna pulled the magic from her spells to make the cramped galley appear as normal as possible. “Paul,” Suzanne’s voice was pitched low, “your drink cart’s here. Where are you?” Jenna flushed the toilet and splashed cold water on her overheated face. She took her time drying off and settled her features into a bland expression before stepping out of the john. With a nod and a smile at Suzanne, she pushed the curtain aside and returned to her seat. Krae was already there, doing her best to mask a self-satisfied grin. “Okay, I give up.” Jenna eyed the changeling. “What did you do?” “Teleported him outside the plane. Nature took care of the rest.” Jenna thought about it. “While it’s good he’s gone, how will we know he didn’t report in somehow?” “We won’t,” Krae said shortly. “Which means we’ll have to be very careful not to lead the enemy right to wherever we’re staying after we land.”   About the Author: Ann Gimpel is a national bestselling author. A lifelong aficionado of the unusual, she began writing speculative fiction a few years ago. Since then her short fiction has appeared in a number of webzines and anthologies. Her longer books run the gamut from urban fantasy to paranormal romance. Once upon a time, she nurtured clients, now she nurtures dark, gritty fantasy stories that push hard against reality. When she’s not writing, she’s in the backcountry getting down and dirty with her camera. She’s published over 30 books to date, with several more planned for 2016 and beyond. A husband, grown children, grandchildren and wolf hybrids round out her family.   www.anngimpel.com   http://anngimpel.blogspot.com   http://www.amazon.com/author/anngimpel   http://www.facebook.com/anngimpel.author   @AnnGimpel (for Twitter)