T. A. Chase

Wednesday Work In Progress….

I thought I’d start doing this again. Giving you a glimpse of what I’m working on. 🙂 This is the overall ‘cover’ for the steampunk PAX at Amber Allure. It’ll be out in February. I won’t have an exact date until all the stories are in. I’ll remind you closer to the release, but for any of the PAXs, you can get all five stories in the PAX for a great discounted price. 🙂

My story is titled The Whore of New Slum, and it’s my first try at steampunk. I’m hoping I get it right, and go totally off the rails with it…lol.

Here’s an excerpt:

As he reached the second floor landing, he heard shouting from down the hall. Usually, he’d ignore the arguing, and make his way up to Molly’s room, but he found a reluctance to continue on that day. More than likely, it was because he knew Molly’s time was growing near, and he hated watching his sister waste away.

So he wandered in the direction of the yelling, curious as to what-or who-was causing all the trouble. He approached the room, and someone burst out of it, running into him.

He grunted and stumbled back, arms flailing as he tried to keep his balance and not end up on his ass. Two hands came into his view, gripping his wrists long enough for him to get back on his feet. Wendall blinked, not sure he’d seen what he thought he had. One of the hands had been normal, well-formed with thick fingers and scars marring the darkly tanned skin. The other hand had looked like it was made out of metal; bright shiny silver skin with steel joints.

Wendall’s gaze shot up to look at the person standing in front of him. By his height and the breadth of his shoulders, Wendall deduced the stranger was male, but he couldn’t tell anything else about him. The bottom half of the man’s face was covered by a leather mask, and a high-collared shirt and long leather pants hide everything else.

“Sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

Wendall thanked his experience in hiding his emotions when he heard the stranger’s voice. It sounded like he’d gargled with broken glass and tore his vocal cords apart to the point there was almost nothing left of it. Wendall kept his face bland, hoping he showed only a mild hint of curiosity.

“It’s all right. I wasn’t paying attention and stopped at the wrong floor. Have too many things running around in my head at the moment.” Wendall flashed his best customer smile and bowed a little. “Thank you for saving me from embarrassing myself.”

The stranger stepped back, holding his left hand behind his back, obviously forgetting that Wendall had all ready seen it. He dipped his head, turning so that the left side was hidden from Wendall. Scars cris-crossed the man’s face, and a deep furrow formed between the man’s eyebrows, making Wendall believe he was in pain.

“You’re welcome.”

“Abdur, get back in here. I still need to make some adjustments and make sure you’re strong enough for the procedure.”

A doctor rushed from the door, skidding to a stop the moment his eyes landed on Wendall. His eyes went right to the brand on Wendall’s face, and Wendall braced himself for the scornful expression the doctor was sure to be sporting soon. A lot of people looked down on Wendall and his kind for the services they provided, yet if they didn’t do it, there would be a lot of unhappy people doing terrible things to each other. Most people didn’t see that, and thought they were superior to Wendall.

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012, by , Filed under: Amber Allure,Covers,PAX,The Whore of New Slum,Wednesday WiPs,writing| | 3 Comments