Friday, December 26, 2014

2014 Novel Series #12: The Tattooed Man

In the beginning there was light. There was likely also some kind of really loud booming sound, but mostly there was light. Anyway. No one knows what will happen in the end though there has been a lot of speculation. Hell, I wrote a whole anthology of short stories about it and plan to write at least one (other) full post-apocalyptic novel. Moving on: the following novel holds the title of being the last in a thirteen book series. That's right, THE LAST IN A 13 BOOK SERIES.

IT IS DONE. IT IS OVER. NO MORE SHALL I WRITE "OURS" UNDER THE WORLD TAB OF THESE SUMMARIES.

Sorry. I got excited. Honestly I'm still on a high from writing "The End" on this thing instead of "To be continued in *name of next novel here*"

It has taken 10 months (November 8ish 2013 until September 1 of 2014) to write it. That's 938,886 words NOT including the short stories that go with it (Memories) or the alternate zombie apocalypse novel I wrote between the 12th and 13th books. Yeah, that scared the crap out of me too.

I have reached the end of a 13 book series and this is the final summation for my first (and possibly only) attempt at thriller/mystery fiction set completely in the real world.

The Tattooed Man concludes the events started in Face Snatcher and continued in *deep breath*: Hangings, Dryer, Witches, Car Jacking, Hunter, Disease, Trust, Child, Bloody X Mas, Pieces, and Senses. It is the end of an era.

This is the 12th book I wrote for the year and I was kind of hoping it would be number 13 because, you know, 13th book written 13th in the year. Ha. Actually. It is the 13th book. I wrote a novel-length piece of fiction between all the books. HA!

Okay. Sorry. ONWARDS with the summary:

Genre: Thriller/Mystery

Word Count: 65,818

Prompt: So, I was touring the NaNo threads like two years ago (maybe more) and was in the adoption section because I was procrastinating on something. I stumbled upon the adopt-a-villain thread and saw a description for "The Tattooed Man." I ran with it. Honestly, I didn't have the plot for this one until about four months ago, maybe less.

Main Characters: James Reeves, Mia Liu, Lucy McGregor, Sable Abella, Michael Brown, Gavriila "Karma" Saytakhmetov, and the Tattooed Man.

Minor Characters of Note: Chief of Police Patterson (who finally told me her first name), David Jones and his boyfriend Andy (I know, again), Jasmine McGregor, Simon Jenkens (who was supposed to be MMC3 in the whole series), Mike Clemmons (you'll remember him from Witches and Trust), and Sandra Gideon.

Summation: Mike Clemmons finds a body in the woods and suddenly the team finds the grave sites of 16 women, all victim of a mass murderer that no one's know about till, well, now.

High Points: Michael and Gavriila's relationship.

Low Points: Yeah, see those six named main characters? One of them dies. No I'm not telling you which one.

The World: Ours. THIS IS THE LAST TIME I WILL HAVE TO WRITE THAT! *dances*

Memorable lines:

James let out a breath and wondered why he felt like something was going to go wrong. He wished he knew what that something was but he knew he wouldn't see it until it was about to happen. James only hoped they could be prepared.

"Son of a fucking bitch." McGregor muttered.
They'd hit a particularly large root or rock or something. As long as it wasn't the body she was somewhat happy. Hitting her head (against the roof of the CSI van she's driving through the woods) wasn't great but at least it wasn't the body. Screw optimism.
"You okay?" Sable asked.
"I've been better." McGregor said.
"I've never been glad that I'm short." Sable said. (She's five foot four inches)
"No, you're average height for a female. I'm freakishly tall. Ow." McGregor said. (Five foot ten inches.)

"The unsub poured some kind of metal over the victim's face." McGregor said.
"Metal?" James asked.
"Metal, kind of like how Drogo killed Viserys in A Game of Thrones, er, I've been re-watching, sorry. Anyway, yes, hot metal poured over the face staring from the forehead and ending at the mouth. Lots of pain until the metal got into the throat: a slow death." McGregor said.

"I am coming in December." Gavriila said. (Brown's Russian girlfriend)
Brown stopped typing and stared. She was grinning at him. They hadn't discussed anything about an actual visit. Apparently Gavriila didn't give a shit. Brown opened his mouth then closed it. He tried to find words but didn't know what to say.
"Are you okay?" Gavriila tried.
She was frowning.

"You broke my brain. Gimme a minute to get it back online." Brown said.
...
Then again, she was coming to Woodborough to see him. His girlfriend was coming from across an ocean to see him. Brown let out a long breath and stared at her smiling face.
"Michael?" Gavriila asked.
He really like the way she said his name. (D'aww)

"He's established, comfortable, unlikely to make a mistake, and will be exceptionally difficult to find. Adding to it, if we count those ten potentials as victims then we've got another mass murderer on our hands." James said (about the unsub).

"And we ran into some reporters downstairs asking about what we're working on. I glared, they took off, standard stuff." McGregor said.
James was glad McGregor was intimidating, really, but she didn't have to be so blasé about it. (Hehe)

"Hope doesn't exist, really. You make shit happen. You don't hope it'll happen."

"I should give you cooking lessons." James said.
"It'd probably go over just as well as me giving you shooting lessons." Mia said.

"Whoever he is, he's patient but not angry. There are no other signs of torture. He's basically strapping them down, pouring the pewter over their faces, waiting for them to stop moving then carrying them out into the woods to bury them. It's not a proper burial so he doesn't feel any remorse for what he's doing and like we've said, he's doing it because his significant other likely miscarried and can no longer have children. I don't think it will be any kind of doctor." James said.

"Do I dare ask how the case is going?" Amy questioned.
"You all ready did." James told her.
"Smart ass." Amy said.
"It's Doctor Smart Ass. I have a degree and everything." (Haha)

They were looking at him like he'd grown a second head. Brown wished he could screen cap real life. It took him a second to realize that was called taking a picture and he wished he could laugh. Maybe they did need the others to look over things.

"Yeah but I want the whole thing: the guy to kill the spiders, the father, the man in the bed all the time, ya know?" Jasmine (Lucy's sister) said.
"I can kill spiders." Lucy told her.
Jasmine almost spit out her wine. They started laughing and it took a while to settle.
"Naw, ya don't kill 'em, ya catch 'em, study 'em then let them go when they start freaking out about the woman poking at 'em. Ya scare spiders into leaving." Jasmine said.
Lucy laughed. Jasmine had a good point.
"Maybe that's why we haven't seen any in this place." Lucy said.
"Or Raven eats 'em all." Jasmine said.
Raven meowed from his position on Lucy's lap and Lucy petted him. It was probably a combination of both.
"Here's to hard cases and no good men." Jasmine said.
"Yeah, no shit. That's why I date girls." Lucy said.

"Woodborough Police Department, how may I direct your call?"
"To Hell I say, sorry. It's Dragon-God. I have a pizza coming, paid for." Brown said.
"Sorry, I can't direct you to Hell, Dragon-God. You could make an extension 666 and direct it to well, somewhere. And I'll ring you when it comes." Carol said.

Draken-Devil: On it like a fat kid on pie.
Agent0069: What he said but not as offensive to fat kids.
K: On it like a ninja ;) (He's Asian...*whistles innocently*)

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