Meredith Mansfield, Author

Wow. I got so busy going through a final edit of BLOOD WILL TELL, I almost forgot to blog today.

 I am now 95 % certain that I’m going to go ahead and e-publish this, so look for an announcement in the next week or two.  I’ve got the cover art about as good as I can make it. I’ve been through the manuscript one last time. Now I just need to do the formatting and familiarize myself with Smashwords and figure out how to upload it to Amazon.com.

I also need to make a phone call to the agent who’s had the full manuscript. It’s been five months, so I’m pretty sure I know what her answer is, but I just need to touch base and make sure.

Here’s a teaser:

Valeriah let the droning voices wash over her, ignoring them. Politicians and businessmen: they could talk more and say less than any ten other groups. Fortunately, it wasn’t her job to listen to them. In fact, better not, since she needed to stay alert.

She scanned the crowd again. She didn’t see anything out of place, but her instincts screamed at her that something was wrong. Sight could be deceiving, so she submerged herself in her other senses. Senses that were sharper than a human’s.

There. The sharp scent of fear overlaid with anger. That was out of place on a sunny day at the opening ceremony for a new high school science lab. Circulating inconspicuously through the crowd, Valeriah let her nose lead her to the source. The man in the bright yellow T-shirt didn’t look like much, but a concealed weapon could be a great leveler. She didn’t smell gun oil on him, but there was something else.

The mayor finished his “brief” remarks, finally. Zobran–he called himself Zebulon Towers on this side of the portal–stood to give his speech as the primary benefactor of the lab. Valeriah breathed more deeply, still trying to identify the strange scent. Not dangerous. But something . . .

The yellow-shirted man moved forward, raising his arm and shouting. “Towers Technology works for the military. Their money is blood money.”

Oh. One of those. He probably wasn’t a real threat, but her job right now was to safeguard Zobran.