Today I'm very pleased to welcome Jana Denardo as a guest.
When I started my novella, The Darkest Midnight in December, it was actually a short story
aimed at Dreamspinner Press’s Advent Calendar, but it took a darker bounce. I
worked it into a novella, getting the chance to research and write some of the
harsher Christmas legends.
This, by no means, is indicative of my feelings for the
holiday. I think the ideals of Christmas, Hanukkah and Yule, at least those
dealing with the ideas of peace and love for all mankind, are wonderful, and
should be practiced year-round. But for this story, I got to look at Christmas
through the eyes of the Soldiers of the Sun, my four young demon hunters.
Caleb, the default leader, who is partnered both within the demon hunting
organization and as a lover with Agni, the most placid member of the group, who
arrived in the organization via Bombay.
Temple is the
youngest and most boisterous of the group. He comes from a long line of demon
hunters, but defected to this group from the much more repressive Knights
Templar. His partner and lover is Fu Li from China.
With such a diverse group, I was able to explore all the
facets of the holiday. Caleb, growing up partially in an orphanage, has less
excitement than Temple.
Temple, on the
other hand, had a strict childhood and he still covets the things he missed out
on. Li and Agni, being non-Christians, have a different perspective on the
whole holiday.
Back to those darker myths I mentioned, one of the two
demons the Soldiers of the Sun have to face before any more children go missing
in Economy, has his roots in those myths. Some time in the last hundred years,
the legend of Santa Claus was cleaned up a bit, and bad boys and girls were
forced to make due with lumps of coal. In centuries prior, it was possible
they’d be faced with Santa’s evil counterpart. Whippings, kidnappings, even
being eaten up was on the table for ill-behaved children. Krampus, Le Père
Fouettard and Zwarte Piet all fall into this category, though, given Temple’s French
background, I went with the French version. I probably would have been much
better behaved if I thought some guy was going to sneak into the house with a
whip on Christmas Eve.
There are the more traditional gift giving and family moments in the story as
well, but I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not always a “sweet fiction” author.
I’m very fond of my action-adventure stories and this is definitely that, set
against a background of Christmas in the Great Depression.
My love of history and folklore filled in many of the
remaining blanks. I didn’t know all that much about the 1930’s, so in my
writing, I had a lot more work to do for this than I did when I wrote the short
story, Snowbound, for the same
characters. (Snowbound appeared in
Dreamspinner Press’s anthology, Necking).
It’s tricky working time for intimate encounters into a
story where not only babies are going missing, but there is almost a certainty
that it will continue unless Caleb and his team are able to stop the
supernatural creature taking the babies and the couples. It doesn’t work if the characters seem
insensitive to the drama unfolding around them in order to make time for sex,
but their own fears and concerns about surviving this dangerous assignment
serves to bring them together in a more organic, holistic way.
I moved away from the Pittsburgh
area years ago, but in my stories, I keep going back to that area. The city and
the towns around it make for great settings, and I enjoyed putting Caleb, Temple, Agni and Li into
the city’s history. For me, they are vibrant characters, and religious lore and
mythology, not mention my own imagination, allow for a vast array of demons for
them to fight.
At its base, the story isn’t a traditional romance. It’s
definitely more action/adventure. However, both sets of couples do find time to
indulge their passions. For me, some of the most romantic moments of the
novella aren’t in the bedrooms, but at the times when they risk injury and
death to keep their partners safe. This story gives them ample opportunity for
that kind of sacrifice and at the end, there is a tender and happy moment for
them all.
I wanted to say thanks for having me here on your blog
today, and thanks to everyone who stopped by.
Or
Excerpt from The
Darkest Midnight in December
“How many babies have gone missing?” Li asked.
Caleb tapped the briefcase holding a stack of files
given to him by General Taglioferro before they left their headquarters in Pittsburgh. “Three and several
couples. The local priests and police think it’s all the work of demons.”
“I was too busy packing.” Temple patted the box that held his Tommy gun
and ammunition. “I didn’t get a chance to check out what the Order already
knows about what’s going on here.”
“Once again, Li, your partner was napping.” Agni
leveled a look at Temple
who wrinkled his nose.
“We’ll bring him up to date once we get there.” Li
pulled his coat tighter as the truck taking them from train station to hotel
lurched down the road. “I just want to know why we have to ride in the bed with
the luggage.”
“We all wouldn’t have fit.” Caleb shrugged. “And the
driver they sent didn’t want any demon hunters in the cab with him, like we’ll
infect him with our ability to see the demons or something.”
“Idiot. Who does he think is going to save this dumb
town?” Temple
grumbled.
“I also think he wasn’t too keen on our partners.”
Caleb glanced over at Agni, the Hindu’s dark skin peeking out of the scarf
wound around his hooded head.
Temple
snorted. “Big surprise. One of Father’s biggest complaints about me joining the
Soldiers of the Sun and not the Knights Templar was that we welcomed all
faiths, all cultures. I thought he’d go apoplectic when he found out I have a
Chinese partner,” he said. The wind nearly whipped away his whispered, “Too bad
he didn’t just die from it.”
The four demon hunters hunkered down, trying to keep
out of the wind as the truck wound its way through Ambridge, Pennsylvania.
The store fronts winked by with promises of Christmas treasures on offer. The
holiday was only a few days away. None of them, Temple in particular, had wanted to leave
home before Christmas. There was no guarantee they wouldn’t be spending the
holiday holed up in their hotel, nursing demon-inflicted wounds.
The brick hotel looked hospitable enough from its
exterior. The truck driver was quick to
help them off his truck and inside, away from him. It wasn’t an entirely new
reaction. As Soldiers of the Sun, they had long since gotten used to people being
wary of them. The hotel staff shunted them upstairs just as swiftly to
adjoining rooms. Temple
scowled at the twin metal bed frames in the room he shared with Li.
“These beds better be movable,” he grumbled.
“If you keep me awake, that adjoining door will be a
pathway to your doom,” Agni warned grimly.
Glaring, Temple
leaned against the wall. “Tell me what I missed of the report. Three missing
babies?”
Caleb sat at the rickety desk crammed into the corner
near a radiator that knocked and banged, but offered up toasty steam heat. “And
several couples. No bodies have been found.”
“They could have been eaten,” Li pointed out. “Demons
are best known for doing that.”
“That’s one of the reasons the
Order was contacted,” Caleb replied. “We’re to meet with the local police
tomorrow.”
