Descent Into Dust (39 page)

Once inside, I pulled back the drape so I could wave to them all as the driver pulled away. Henrietta’s small hand extended as if she would summon me back. When the carriage rounded the end of the drive, I let the curtain drop so I did not have to see the house growing smaller on the horizon behind me.

My driver took us across the plains, down the road scored over the pattern of the ancient stones, a path of ages, where death and life came up against each other, and I felt it fitting to leave Avebury by way of this ridgeway. I leaned my head back on the deep cushions, closing my eyes. I should rest, I thought. I must prepare for all that lay ahead. I must be ready. Always ready.
Semper praesum.

I smiled as my carriage rumbled along the road.

A+ AUTHOR INSIGHTS, EXTRAS & MORE…

I am a native Philadelphian, born in South Philly and raised first there, then later in the suburbs. I attended the University of Pennsylvania for both undergraduate and graduate studies, earning a Ph.D. in psychology. I moved with my husband to Maryland immediately after that and have practiced here for more than twenty years as a licensed psychologist. I have three children and a houseful of pets.

Every writer begins as a reader. I cut my teeth on Gothic novels and Nancy Drew mysteries, which I consumed with a voracious appetite, loving every heart-pounding moment of suspense. I began writing when I was in the seventh grade, filling notebooks with unfinished stories of horror, science fiction, and romance. By senior year in high school, I was doing short story collections, but these were never shared—writing was my “dirty little secret.”

It was always my dream to write a full-length novel, and I began attempting this in college. I eventually succeeded many
years later, and years after that found the courage to “come out” about my peculiar hobby of making up stories. I found a terrific second career as a writer of romantic fiction, but after a while I wanted to challenge myself again to create a new, completely different sort of story. With the Emma Andrews series, I have found my way back to all those Gothic traditions I treasured growing up. So I’ve come full circle, and just as Emma finds her true self, so have I.

The Emma Andrews series began as a historical detective series! No vampires in sight, believe it or not.

I was reading historical novels—lots of them—and I felt inspired. As I began to formulate the structure of the series, I couldn’t get a handle on the “hook,” that is to say the unique quality of my series or lead character that makes it special and different from anything else. Meanwhile, I kept being drawn to the concept of the Gothic novel. I grew up reading the books of Victoria Holt, Daphne du Maurier, Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney—and I still love them. My favorite parts were always the spooky elements. So I thought a little touch of the supernatural might be the ticket for my detective—as if she were a medium who is helped by supernatural forces when solving crimes. (Terrible, I know, but at least it was a start.)

Then a stray comment from a friend brought it all together for me (thank you, Donna!). She mentioned how many successful novelists have taken a concept or a character and pushed it way over the top. I had an
ah-hah
moment and the idea for the series veered drastically off course from its original trajectory. Suddenly all the ideas I’d been tossing around combusted into something very hot. I decided the series would have a full-on supernatural theme, and naturally, my mind went to that quintessential evil being, the vampire. I had the idea that my heroine would be a neophyte, an underdog who has to navigate the repressive society of Victorian England and find a way to fulfill her destiny as a vampire hunter.

Now I had not read many vampire novels at this point, save the seminal
Dracula
by Bram Stoker and a few of Anne Rice’s
early works. I knew there were all kinds of vampire and vampire hunter series out there, not to mention the absolute plethora of vampire romances. (I had not yet read the
Twilight
books, nor Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series—both of which I am a rabid fan of now.) What I saw on the shelves looked largely like slick, urban, sexy vampire-type books. My series was going to be different, which might mean it was not sellable. However, I had to write it. If it got published, then great. If not, then that would be great too (although, admittedly, not as great) because I had to tell this story, even if only to myself.

Once I started writing, it became apparent that some of the problems Emma faces in
Descent into Dust
would not be resolved by the end of the book. That surprised me. It also became apparent that her core group—Sebastian, Valerian, and Father Luke—began taking on more prominence as I developed the plot, with exciting stories of their own. I began to look at the series not as simply episodic, though I still intend for each book to still be a separate “mystery,” but as an ongoing quest of wider scope. It was unbelievably exciting trolling the Internet and poring over books to get the rich details that would comprise my vampire world. I culled inspiration from established Catholic traditions, world folklore, and Romantic literature, as well as drawing on my own psychology background to map out an exploration of human emotion and the complexities of real relationships. The result is, I hope, something you have found as thrilling to read as I did to write it.

Read on for a sneak preview of the next Emma Andrews adventure,
The Cyprian Queen,
which will be available from Avon A in March 2011. I hope you will enjoy accompanying me further into the dark, mystery-steeped world of vampires and hunters. Don’t forget your sharpened stake. And a little holy water never hurt.

The scrape of the monk’s footsteps, like sandpaper on the smooth marble surface of the palace’s long central hallway, was startling in the silence. From where I was seated behind the raw wooden table I’d made my desk in what used to be a ladies’ sitting parlor, I saw his tonsured head bowed as he advanced toward my doorway, his brown-garbed form dwarfed by the towering windows of the great hall. I think I knew even then that what I’d felt hurtling toward me had finally arrived.

I was going over a Greek translation at the time and was feeling a sense of unease. Nausea rose against the back of my throat. I had come to learn that the undead sometimes posed as scholars to write false documents to mislead and misdirect hunters. I found I had some feeling for detecting this, and I sensed it strongly in this document, a boastful, fraudulent account of the purported powers of the Greek vampire, known as the
Vrykolakas
.

The deceptive author described a breed of revenant that was not subject to the same limitations as the rest of the undead. I marveled at the lies as I read of communities where vampires lived out in the open, sunning themselves in exotic flower-
draped grottoes and drinking pomegranate juice, living among their prey like brothers. They were capable, this clever deceiver would have it, of both casting a reflection and a shadow.

My physical revulsion from the blood of its author caused my stomach to flutter precariously, but there was something in the words, some boast, even a lurid triumph, which made me push past discomfort and forge on in the hope of learning something of value.

Upon the arrival of the young cleric, however, I pushed my task aside and struggled to compose myself. Even here, where they knew what I was, I remained guarded, retreating into a reflexive secretiveness. It had always been so; I was used to hiding my…oddities. After all, one had to have a care when one had a secret like mine—or one might find oneself situated in the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum.

“Mistress,” he muttered. Middle-aged, tonsured, rather undignified in his brown robe and shuffling boots. “This arrived for you this morning.”

I saw at once by the handwriting on the address that it was from Sebastian Dulwich, and my heart leapt with happiness. This man, my closest, dearest friend, had stood at my side and fought with me during my initiation into the world of undead.

Friendship, and home. I held the letter eagerly but waited until the last of the monk’s hollow footsteps faded to silence to break the seal and unfold the heavy paper. When I did, something fell onto the table.

I examined it curiously. I saw it was a packet, folded and sealed with a wax impression I did not recognize. There was no direction or address, and though I assumed this was also meant for me, I set it aside for the moment and addressed the expansive, florid script that was Sebastian’s hand.

Dearest Emma,
I read:

I paused, a little hitch catching in my chest, as if my heart had missed a beat. I had not, as it happened, had a single word since Valerian Fox and I had said our good-byes last spring. That was five months ago. And I had found the separation much more difficult than I would ever have anticipated.

Recovering, I read on.

My heart twisted in my chest, as if it literally leapt for joy. I adored my little cousin, for a sweeter child could not exist, and it was for precisely this reason of her pure spirit that she had been at the center of the evil events that had taken place in Avebury. It was there I had engaged in my first battle with a vampire. I had not even known they existed before that time, let alone suspected the deep ties I myself possessed to that terrible world. I had discovered my powers, the singular ability among mortal men and women to kill vampires. It was Valerian Fox who had shown me this and taught me what I had needed to know. Together, we had fought a powerful lord vampire to save Henrietta, along with the aid of a warrior priest, Father Luke. Sebastian, too, had been an indispensable help to me.

I paused, lifting my gaze to the multi-paned window as I drew in the breath I needed to brace myself. My eyes drifted to the glossy blackness of the sea that lay beyond the neglected
terraced lawns of the old palace. A sense of inevitability sealed itself in my mind as I thought idly of the terrible coldness of the water, the kind that seizes a body into paralysis. One instant plunge into a rigor not unlike death.

I lowered my head and read on.