At Speculative Chic, we feature a lot of authors who share everything from their favorite things to the inspiration for their work. But why not also share their fiction? Welcome to Fiction Friday, where you’ll be able to sample the fiction of a variety of authors, including those who write at Speculative Chic! Today, we’re featuring Nancy O’Toole Meservier, whose name you may recognize from her monthly columns at Speculative Chic. The latest installment of her superhero/urban fantasy series, Silver and Gold, comes out on Monday, May 25th, so in order to celebrate the upcoming release, we’re sharing an excerpt from the very first book of the series, Red and Black!
About the Book
Red and Black (2018)
Written by: Nancy O’Toole Meservier
Genre: Superhero/Urban Fantasy
Pages: 378
Series: Book 1 of Red and Black Series
Publisher: Amazon.com Digital
Dawn Takahashai knows all about superheroes.
She’s been a fan of them for years. So when she’s granted an impressive powerset of her own, she dives right in, eager to prove herself as Bailey City’s first superhero: Miss Red and Black.
Her first challenge is Faultline. He’s powerful, smart and, as a henchman for Bailey City’s first supervillain, standing right in her way. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that under the mask, Faultline is Alex Gage, a working-class guy trying to scrounge together enough money to help support his younger sisters.
Dawn has no idea that the charming and seemingly straightforward Alex is Faultline. Alex has no idea that the adorably awkward Dawn is the superhero he clashes with at night.
And Dawn and Alex have a date next week.
Currently Available from: Amazon || Barnes & Noble || IndieBound
Don’t Miss the Rest of the Series
Red and Black Excerpt
In the opening chapter of Red and Black, Dawn rescues a local man from being kidnapped, and one of the kidnappers just happens to be Marty, a classmate. Just before the following scene, a costumed Dawn is investigating the kidnapping by shadowing Marty (accompanied by Noel, who also attends school with Dawn). Marty and Noel have just entered a building, and Dawn has followed.
The double doors led to a well-lit lobby. There was a large granite desk to the right that stood next to a trio of metal detectors. Behind the security station was a bay of four elevator doors and a hallway that continued throughout the ground level of the building. The place was all gleaming surfaces and clear glass. Apparently, the cleaning staff wasn’t slacking off just because things were a little slower.
It was why I noticed the blood on the floor right away.
The bright puddle had pooled next to the security desk. I bolted toward it, turning the corner to see an old guy dressed in the telltale gray and black uniform of a security guard. He lay on the floor, the gathering of blood beneath his head staining his salt and pepper hair. His eyes were open, and still.
I raised the palm of my right hand to my forehead.
“Shit.” My voice came out breathy. “Shit.”
Oh Marty, Noel, what have you done? And what about me? If I had been a little faster, could I have saved this man? Could I have…
I spun around in place, then stopped, shaking out my hands. Okay, Dawn, remain focused. You can’t let them get away with this. And more importantly, there might be more damage to prevent. First, call the police.
I carefully stepped around the security guard (I could tell from his name tag that he was called “Steve,” just like my Steve from Northwest Comics) and grabbed the phone. Checking to make sure there was a dial tone, I punched in 911 and waited for the first ring. I nodded, then placed the phone on the desk instead of hanging up. From there, I looked over the rest of the surface, where an array of tiny black-and-white screens displayed the various public spaces. My attention was drawn to one fuzzy screen in particular — that of two men standing in an elevator.
It was Marty and Noel, and they were wearing black ski masks.
“Sorry, Steve,” I murmured, stepping around the man before dashing to the elevators.
Okay, Dawn. Time to use that brain of yours.
Above each of the doors was a line of numbers, explaining where each elevator was located. With one exception, they were all on “G” for ground floor. The other one had just stopped on 35 and didn’t move.
That was my destination.
I pressed the up button next to the neighboring elevator. It dinged upon opening, and I jumped as if it had been a gun blast.
Calm down. I gritted my teeth. There were clearly bigger things to worry about thirty-five floors up.
It probably took only a few minutes to get to my floor, but it felt like an eon. I winced as the door let out a ding when it opened. Yikes, I was such a n00b. I should have gotten off at the last floor and taken the stairs! I paused, listening. Distinctly masculine voices could be heard down the hall.
“This place is like a frickin’ maze,” Marty said, not bothering to lower his voice.
Well, at least I wasn’t the only one failing the stealth test today.
I exited the elevator and started down the hallway. The stress of the situation seemed to make me hyperaware of my surroundings — the glare of the fluorescent lights, the hum of the air-filtration system, the surprisingly plush carpet, and the cloying stench of orange cleaner.
I tried to remain focused.
“There was a sign back there,” I heard Noel say.
Footsteps rustled on the carpet. After a few seconds, they grew more pronounced, and I realized that they were coming toward me. Instinctively, I backed into a side hallway, flattening myself against the walls, all too aware of how starkly the red and black of my outfit stood out against the whitewashed background. A second later, they walked by, their masks wiping away any traces of their personalities. From their body types, I could tell that Marty was in the lead. He held a tire iron, of all things, in his hands.
I felt my fists tighten.
For a second, I thought about pouncing on them right there. I could take out the two of them out easily, have them ready for the police, and let the cops do their jobs without me butting in. (Rule #5: You are not a detective. Let the police do what they were trained to do.) Only…the cops already had their driver from last time, and these guys were still going around making trouble. What’s to say that Marty couldn’t be replaced as easily as Martha had been? And maybe seeing where they were going would give me a better idea of why the hell they had wanted Dana Peterson in the first place.
Instead of attacking, I decided to follow, if just to figure out what was going on. At the first sign of trouble, I would act. After all, I bet I could handle a couple of hits from a tire iron. I had done just fine with a crowbar once. And a lead pipe.
Jeez. My life was turning into a game of Clue. Only one where I was Mr. Body, and thankfully much harder to kill.
Anyway. Not important.
The two turned a corner and stopped in front of a wooden door that looked pretty identical to every other entryway we had come across. Noel pointed out the one difference right away.
“Here,” he said, tapping a nearby nameplate. I noticed that his voice shook slightly.
Marty nodded and knocked.
“Mr. Hamilton,” he called out in a singsong voice.
Gee. Way to sound like a psychopath, Marty.
“Just a second,” a deep, masculine voice replied on the other side.
About thirty seconds later, the door swung open, revealing a heavyset black man in a wrinkled shirt and tie. Gray marked his hair and beard.
And before I could ask myself “friend or foe?” Marty pretty much answered that for me by hitting the guy across the face with the tire iron. Mr. Hamilton let out a cry of pain.
“Hey!” I shouted from down the hall.
Marty and Noel turned to look at me. Marty cursed.
I broke into a sprint, wishing, for the second time tonight, that super speed had been part of my power-set. Marty and Noel were already shoving the guy back into the office, slamming the door behind them. I skidded to a halt.
“Oh, please!” I rolled my eyes, then kicked down the door.
I stepped inside of what was probably a small secretary’s office/waiting room. A table and a couple of comfy chairs sat on one side, a desk and a shelf filled with important looking-books on the other. But I didn’t have time to linger over the quality of the furnishings. Instead, my attention was drawn toward Noel, who stood, shaking, a shiny handgun raised and pointed right at me.
What was more important was what he was standing in front of: the only other exit in the room. Given that Marty and Mr. Hamilton were no longer here, it was pretty obvious where they had gone.
I had pictured scenes like this before. Encountering bad guys and exchanging witty banter before saving the day. Watching as their arrogant retorts were transformed to yelps of pain. But in those scenes, the guys I faced had never seemed quite this terrified.
“Listen,” I said, taking a step forward. “Please just — ”
“Don’t move!” Noel replied, his voice muffled by the ski mask. “You can’t…just…don’t move.”
My eyes flickered to the weapon. I had never been shot before, and I wasn’t quite sure how my healing abilities would take to it. I had a feeling that I would ultimately be fine, but I had no idea how long getting back to fine would take. Would that give Marty and Noel enough time to bring the victim out of the back room and get by me?
Given the tremor that went up Noel’s arm, I wasn’t even sure he could hit me, despite the fact that I wasn’t much more than ten feet away.
So, talking first?
“I know who you are, Noel White,” I said.
Noel’s hand jerked. I forced myself not to flinch, half-expecting the gun to go off in his hand.
“I saw you and Marty get into the car to get here,” I said. “I don’t know how you two got caught up in all this, but Marty’s killed a man, Noel.”
“N-no…I told him not to…”
“That doesn’t change what he did. And Noel, you let the man bleed out onto the floor without calling an ambulance. Do you think you can just walk away from that? Even if you succeed with whatever you’re doing here tonight, even if you get away, the police will know that you’re involved. Your life will be over.”
“You’re making it awfully hard not to shoot you.”
“It must mean that you really don’t want to.”
I heard the beginnings of a strange rhythmic noise coming from the room behind Noel. What was…
“I will,” Noel replied, increasing his grip on the gun. “For the Mistress, I will.”
“The Mistress?”
The rhythmic noise grew louder, and I felt something inside my brain click.
“Noel.” I blinked. “You’re stalling.”
I darted forward. I heard a loud bang as the weapon discharged, and something whooshed over my shoulder. Then I was on him, twisting the gun out of Noel’s hand. I felt a twinge of sympathy for my classmate as I felt his thumb dislocate and heard a small noise of pain. This was almost completely overshadowed by the other noise, whose source was now undeniable.
I tore the door off its hinges as I opened it wide.
Marty was still handling the guy in the suit. They stood next to a large, official-looking wooden desk. The older guy was clearly having a hard time standing in place, making me wonder if he had been drugged or just hit too hard on the head. Much as Dana Peterson had been, Mr. Hamilton was trussed up in zip ties, although his hands were tied in back.
Unlike Dana Peterson, they weren’t getting away in any creeper van.
The window behind them had been thrown wide, the safety measures somehow overridden, making the thirty-five-story drop a real possibility. And on the other side was a helicopter. A frickin’ helicopter! It hovered so close to the building, I was surprised the spinning blades hadn’t scratched the windows. Some sort of connecting slide had been lowered to the window frame, providing a bridge between the helicopter and the building. I watched as a woman, also in a ski mask, slid into the office.
And then I heard footsteps at my three o’clock.
I spun just in time to dodge out of the way as two fists came swinging toward me. I jumped back through the open doorway, landing on the floor. As a result, the blow missed me, hitting the carved wooden chair I had been standing next to instead. It practically exploded in a terrific crash, the once-solid piece of furniture now in a dozen pieces.
For a moment, all I could do was look up at the figure that stood over me, framed by the doorway to the back office. He was dressed from head to toe in some sort of hard, black material and wore a helmet that looked like the Tron version of Judge Dredd’s headgear. Everything about him was obscured except for his jaw, which was set in a firm line.
He was wearing a costume.
Like me.
And I was pretty sure he wasn’t here to help out.
He moved through the doorway, arms raised for another two-handed blow. I rolled out of the way in time. He hit the hardwood instead, which splintered beneath his hands as if it had been glass. I was faster, though, and managed to get back to my feet. I clenched my hands into fists. He was clearly strong, but so was I.
I took a swing. His hands blocked and deflected my blow away from his face. He delivered a cross with his right that slammed into my jaw and sent me spinning backwards.
Ow, ow, ow, holy shit, ooooww!
Before taking up the mask, I, like most good (okay, painfully boring) girls, got decent grades, didn’t skip class, and never did anything that would make my mother too ashamed. I had never been hit before costuming up. Now I couldn’t count how many blows I had taken. That’s the reality about throwing yourself into the fray. You’re gonna get hit every now and then. Fortunately, that’s where my resilience kicked it. I could take a punch. It hurt, but the pain faded pretty fast.
I had never been hit this hard. This guy was big, it was true, but there was something more to him. Most people couldn’t turn a nice chair into kindling in a single blow.
I was still reeling from it when I felt hands at my collarbone. The next thing I knew, I was being lifted off my feet, then pinned to the nearest wall. I felt the drywall crumble.
Oh shit. Oh shit. I was not a high enough level for this boss fight.
“Who are you?” the man said, his voice low and gravelly.
I didn’t answer, which wasn’t a surprise given that I was probably frickin’ concussed at this point. He banged me against the wall again, sending a fresh wave of pain through every surface on the back of my body.
“Who are you?” he demanded again.
“God,” I half-gasped. “You’re not doing the Bale Batman voice, because no one really liked that, you know?”
“What?” He cocked his head to the side.
“It was the only bad call Bale made in portraying that character. He was such a great, ugh…Bruce Wayne, you know?”
“Just take off her mask, Faultline.” Marty was suddenly at his side.
Oh, God, what did that mean about Mr. Hamilton? I began to turn my head to the back office, only to stop when the guy with the helmet reached up to take off my mask.
It wouldn’t budge.
I wasn’t sure where my costume came from, but I knew it couldn’t be broken. I had tried everything, including ripping the cape in half with all my enhanced strength, only to be defeated by my own wardrobe. The truth soon became obvious. The only way to reveal who I was, was to transform back into little old Dawn Takahashi in full.
It was incredibly useful.
“It won’t move,” Faultline said, voice low, eyes focused on the mask.
Sensing his distraction, I reeled back and headbutted him right in the face.
Ow, ow, ow! Seriously, why do people always do that in action movies? There was no way I wasn’t waking up with a headache tomorrow.
And I wouldn’t be the only one. Faultline went sprawling backward, his hands raised to his head.
I ran into the back office and looked out the window.
Only to find that the slide had been removed.
The steady rhythm of the helicopter’s blades started to shift as the large vehicle began to move away from the building.
“Oh fuck,” I said, even though I’m pretty sure lawful good heroes like myself are only supposed to swear in their inside voices. Deciding I was up for one more crazy move that night, I crossed the room and hopped on the windowsill. I could jump to the top of a fifteen-story building from ground level. There was no way I was missing this one.
“Stop!” Faultline cried, his voice sharper than before.
I looked behind me to see the big guy raising both his hands in the air as if to deliver another heavy blow. But to what? I was across the room.
Crash! His fists made contact with the floor. I felt my eyes widen as a crack split through the hardwood, like the ground breaking apart during an earthquake. The crack rushed toward me and branched up the side of the wall.
Before I knew what was happening, the window frame crumbled beneath me. I didn’t even have the chance to reach for the blinds to stop me from falling.
The sensation was nothing like jumping from building top to building top. Instead, it was oddly similar to walking up to the top of a staircase, only to discover that you had overestimated how many steps you had to take by one. The feeling of your stomach dropping, the shock as the comforting solidness beneath your feet was suddenly gone, replaced with nothing but open air.
Only instead of one single step, multiply that by thirty-five stories.
About the Author
Nancy O’Toole Meservier
is a vertically challenged librarian who spends her off hours writing fiction, reading, and thinking way too much about superheroes. She lives in Central Maine with two wonderful cats and one equally wonderful spouse. She is currently writing The Red and Black Series.
Check out her website for more information.
Love this series!!! Can’t wait to get my hands on the latest installment!
Thank you!!