Hi. I’m Seressia, and I am a geek. (waves madly to fellow geeksters)

     Of course, back in the day, we were called nerds. You know, the kids with the thick glasses with their noses buried in books, totally oblivious to whatever happened around them. To this day, I can totally ignore screaming kids, barking dogs, and “Honey, where’d I put my…” if I have my nose in a book. That goes for reading and writing.

     I read and write romance, and now have an urban fantasy series, Shadowchasers, that just launched. For some, it will seem like I’m abandoning my romance roots, but really, I’m tending to the other tree in my literary yard. I started my love affair with fantasy and science fiction while reading comics. Sure, I read some Archie and friends, but I really gloomed onto the super heroes. My favorite shows growing up were about the fantastic, the paranormal: every incarnation of Super Friends (even the one with the totally useless Scooby Gang-ripoff teens, and the totally hot Justice League Unlimited) the Sid and Marty Kroft shows, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galatica, X-Men, the Shazam/Isis super hour (oh man, I’m really going way back) Star Trek and Space 1999. I really wanted to be that chick who could turn into other creatures.

     My reading habits were the same. Ursula K Leguin, Madeline L’Engle, Asimov, Heinlein, McCaffrey, Octavia Butler, David Eddings. The stories that resonated most with me were the stories that took me far, far aways. It’s why historical romance was the first sub-genre of romance that I read. And when paranormal romance came along and went mainstream I was ecstatic. At last, the marrying of my two favorite genres! Maybe it was time for me to dust of that story I started when I was twelve, about the two sisters who were protectors of a magical realm, or that series about a matriarchal society of women warriors called Daughters of the Sword…

    I did some werewolf novellas, then I wrote the beginnings of SHADOW BLADE. My heroine, Kira Solomon, is a composite of several obsessions: Rogue from the X-Men cartoon a decade or so ago, Relic Hunter, ancient Egypt and alternative religions. A woman unable to touch another living thing without hurting it and herself, and the ramifications of that, making her a flawed, troubled human being. This is my fantasy of the kick-ass urban fantasy heroine. I think the scene that best encapsulates it is the first time she touches the dangerous Dagger of Kheferatum:

Bracing her gloved hands on the worktable, she leaned over and focused her attention on the dagger. Exhaling slowly, she muted the input of her Normal senses, allowing her extrasense to dominate her mind. As always, she felt a slight resistance as the ordinary and extra-ordinary slid against each other, battling for dominance. Then her extrasense assumed control, reaching through Logic’s Veil to touch the current of magic.

The dagger glowed in response, a sheen having little to do with the ivory and gold shaping its hilt. Oh yes, someone or something had imbued the dagger with a great deal of magic. What she didn’t know was whether it was Shadow magic or not.

She frowned, allowing the Veil to thicken again. Shadow magic was always tricky to handle, based as it was on Chaos. She hadn’t been surprised in a while. Then again, she hadn’t come across a four-thousand-year-old magical knife before either.

Until Kira touched the dagger, she wouldn’t know if it would give up its secrets. She’d have to touch it to determine if the dagger’s magic stemmed from its composition, a powerful spell, or a spirit inhabiting the blade. A spirit-bound weapon wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when it was bad, it was very bad indeed.

After taking a moment to steady herself, she slipped her fingers beneath the blade, wrapping them around the ivory and gold handle. For a moment she felt only the smooth, cool surface of the hilt…

Then a rushing sound filled her head and the warehouse walls shimmered to translucency then disappeared altogether. Turquoise spilled across the pipes and suspended lighting fixtures of her ceiling, a vivid sky brightened by the heat of the searing sun. Hot sand replaced the floor and old Persian rug under her battered worktable—except there was no table, nor were there books, chairs, artifacts… Rocky, sandy hills stretched away in the distance before her but to one side were trees and green fields, the glint of what could only be water. A gleaming white pyramid cut into the sky.

Pyramid?

Disorientation swept over Kira as she felt herself being lifted, carried… No, not her. It was not Kira being held and lifted, it was the dagger, but she was the dagger and it was being taken on a gilded tray along a promenade of sweeping stone columns. Stately movement, tinkling instruments, the murmur of voices. A processional of some sort, moving from bright heat to a cooler interior. They moved along a grand corridor, every surface brilliantly decorated with colorful images of Egyptian gods, hieroglyphs, flora and fauna.

Finally they stopped. Silence filled the grand audience hall and yet she could feel a thrum of excitement, of anticipation, coming from the dagger. At last, the reason for its existence had come. Someone worthy had come.

Moving again, the tray was offered up. A pair of golden brown hands cradled her. Disappointment. Not the one.

She balanced on a pair of hands, heard a voice—deep, masculine, melodious—saying words she did not understand but sounded formal to her ears. As she was lowered, Kira saw the uraeus first—a rearing golden cobra with its hood flared—then the nemes, the striped head cloth even those who knew nothing about ancient Egypt associated with pharaohs. Beneath the royal regalia, kohl-lined dark eyes and a broad but angular nose were set in a bronze face with full lips and a strong chin. Sun glinted off a broad gold and jeweled collar worn over a gleaming white linen tunic.

Another voice spoke; Kira sensed it asked a question. The pharaoh replied in what sounded like the negative, then stepped forward.

She was being offered to someone. A man, darker skinned than the pharaoh, prostrated himself on the woven mat that protected the god-king’s feet from the stone floor of what Kira thought must be a palace, no…a temple terrace. Light scars marred the dark satin of the man’s broad, muscular back; scars—reminders of battles fought, not lashes given. Thick ropes of black hair covered his head and trailed across the mat.

This was the one.

The pharaoh spoke again and the dark-skinned warrior rose until he sat on his haunches with his arms lifted, palms raised upward. But he did not look directly at the living god. To do so was forbidden. Who could look upon the face of a god and survive?

The dagger shifted, passing from the pharaoh to the warrior’s raised hands. The ruler spoke again, sounding pleased, then molded the warrior’s fingers around the blade. For a moment, the god-king’s hands warmed the warrior’s, together on the ivory hilt. The kneeling man pressed the flat of the blade to his lips, then touched his forehead to the stone again, speaking ceremonial words in a rich baritone that made Kira shiver.

Everything blurred, became dark…

Kira realized the dagger now dripped blood, as it was created to do. The acrid stench of something burning, something more than vegetation, filled her nostrils. Bodies littered the dusty ground, blood staining the dirt blackish red. She heard tears, screams, cries of pain. Above it all rose another sound, a darker tone, somehow more terrifying than the others. Laughter. The warrior laughed as he moved through the carnage; it was a cold laughter with an edge of madness to it. The blade swung in his fist, ringing like a clarion, thirsting for blood…

The rushing sound returned to Kira’s brain, separating her awareness from the dagger. She opened her eyes with a gasp, finding herself sprawled on her oriental carpet, the dagger inches from her outstretched hand. She scrambled away from it, away from the emotion and sensation that threatened to drag her back through the Veil.

“Ma’at protect me,” she whispered, drawing a shaky hand across her lips. By the Light, the dagger really was four thousand years old, and possessed of so much magic that it was almost sentient.

That knowledge wasn’t the cause of the sudden cold in the pit of her stomach.

The dagger’s owner, the dark warrior with the baritone voice, was still…somehow…alive.

And looking for his blade.

 I’m having fun with this series, with making my long-time fantasy a reality. The sequel, SHADOW CHASE will be released on July 27, 2010.

How about you? What are your favorite fantasies? What fantasy are you making a reality. Come on, fellow geeks. Lift your chin high. We’re mainstream now too!

 Seressia Glass

www.seressia.com

Okay, folks.  If you’ve read this far, there’s a bonus!  Seressia has graciously agreed to provide a copy of Book One, SHADOW BLADE, to one lucky commentor today.  Good luck.  Don’t forget to look for her upcoming sequel SHADOW CHASE on July 27, 2010.

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