Today I am lucky enough to be able to share an excerpt with you from Amador Lockdown. I'm particularly excited about this excerpt because it was part of one of my favorite parts of the book! So please, take a read. And enter the giveaway at the end!
And a great big Thank You! to Coral Russell for providing me with the excerpt and the giveaway!
Read my review HERE
Title: Amador LockdownAuthor: Coral Russell
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EXCERPT
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Three shadows glided
down the alley between the Amador Hotel and an office complex. The sound of
sneakers skidding to a halt reverberated between the walls of the buildings. At
the back corner of the hotel, the shadows bunched up and paused.
“Okay, smart ass, the
place is locked up. Now how do we get in?” Nelson whispered.
Julio’s plans weren’t
that specific. He and Xavier had been two galans during Dalia’s quinceanera.
She’d come to school a couple of weeks later waving around a picture of the
Honor Court on the balcony, with a black shadow hovering behind her. That
night, Julio started looking up information about the Amador Hotel, and ran
across the news articles on the LC ComicCon and the Restore the Amador
fundraiser. The news chalked it up to electrical problems in an old building,
but Julio thought something else might be happening.
“The news said some
windows were broken. Look,” he said, pointing down the back of the building.
“It looks like two windows are boarded up. If we can get a corner loose, we’re
in.”
A large, paved
parking lot spread out behind the building. The closest lights were the
streetlamps at the other end of the parking lot. Julio paused to make sure no
cars were traveling around at three in the morning. “Go, go, go!”
They ran to the first
window. “Xavier, you keep a lookout. Nelson, help me get the window open.” They
both yanked at a corner of the plywood. It didn’t budge. “We should’ve brought
a hammer,” Xavier whispered.
Nelson reared back
and kicked at the board. The board didn’t budge, but the sound echoed out over
the parking lot. “Dude, what the hell are you doing?” Xavier whispered.
“You can’t kick it
in,” Julio said, as he grabbed Nelson’s arm and pulled him toward the next
window. “This board looks warped. Try this corner.”
Xavier stood to the
side as Julio and Nelson dug their fingers up under the corner of the board and
yanked. A small squeal of metal answered their effort. “Otra vez…again.
This time, brace your foot against the wall,” Julio instructed.
Nelson did what Julio
asked. Julio nodded, and then both boys yanked again. The board gave a loud
crack, but didn’t appear to move much. Julio knelt down to inspect the corner.
It was loose, and when he pulled upward on the corner, a nice-sized gap
appeared under his fingers. “We can squeeze in,” he said, standing up.
Nelson, the biggest
of the three, turned around and knelt with his back to the wall under the
window. He grunted as he squeezed first his head, and then his torso, up behind
the board. He felt hands pushing his legs. “Hey,” he yelled, “cut it out!”
“There’s a car
coming!” Xavier said.
“Oh, shit.” Nelson
braced his palms against the top of the windowsill and shoved. When the backs
of his knees cleared the windowsill, he let himself tumble backwards onto the
floor.
Julio’s head appeared
a second later and, as soon as Nelson could get a hold under his arms, he
yanked him clear of the window.
Xavier stuck his head
inside. “Pull me in!”
Nelson grabbed
Xavier’s arms and pulled until his feet and knees went thunk on the carpet.
“Owwwww! God damn
it!” Xavier rolled over and clutched his leg.
“What?”
“Something cut my
leg.”
“Where?” Julio asked,
flicking on his flashlight.
Xavier rolled his
blue jeans halfway up his calf. “Here.” A red line, oozing pinpricks of blood,
started at his ankle, and then disappeared further up his calf underneath his
blue jeans.
Nelson thumped him on
the back, and then grabbed him under his armpits and lifted him to his feet.
“I’ve had worse cuts on my eyeball.”
“Shut up! That
fucking hurt.”
“Quiet,” Julio
hissed. They all froze, listening for sounds of an approaching car or the
whoop-whoop of a siren. “I don’t think they saw us.”
There was a ‘click,’
and then a small beam of light shone out from the flashlight in Xavier’s
hand.
“My leg hurts,”
Xavier complained.
“Pussy,” Nelson said,
as he poked Xavier in the ribs.
“Shut the fuck up!”
“Seriously?” Julio
motioned toward the doorway with his beam of light. “Let’s do this.”
“Hey, where’s my
flashlight?” Nelson asked.
“I thought ??? told
you to bring one,” Julio said.
“No,” Nelson said.
Julio and Xavier
exchanged a look.
“Here, take mine.”
Julio handed his flashlight to Nelson.
They made their way
slowly through the back rooms to the main hall. They stopped, and bobbed their
lights up and down on the staircase. “This is where we were when that picture
was taken.”
“Okay,” Nelson said.
“Now what?”
“Xavier, why don’t
you sit down on the steps while we go upstairs and have a look around?” Julio
suggested.
“We should stay
together.” Xavier’s voice wavered in the gloom.
“I thought your leg
hurt?” Nelson asked.
“It does, Nelson, but
we should stay together…just in case.”
“In case of what? A
strong breeze ruffles your hair?”
“Julio, why did you
invite this pendejo?”
“Nelson,” Julio said.
“Come on, I thought you wanted to check this out.”
“Check out what? This
ghost crap? I don’t believe in it. I just thought breaking into this place
would be cool.”
“Okay, fine. Nelson,
you stay down here. Xavier, come on.”
“We should stay….”
“Xavier, just come
on!”
Julio followed Xavier
up the staircase, and turned left at the landing to walk up the small staircase
leading to the hotel rooms. Xavier flicked the light back and forth. “There’s a
room back here.”
As Xavier played his
light around, Julio said, “There’s nothing here. Let’s check the other
rooms.”
They walked down the
hall, and paused before each wooden door. The doorknobs felt slick under
Julio’s hand. They poked their head into room after room.
“It’s just a big,
empty building,” Xavier said, disappointed, after Julio shut the door on the
fourth room.
“Oh, shit, I almost
forgot,” Julio said, tugging something out of his pocket.
“What?”
“This.” Julio held up
a slim, gray, plastic stick with a rainbow of small light bulbs at the top.
“It’s a K2 meter. You know, like the one ghost hunters use on TV. They say
ghosts give off an electromagnetic field. No lights, no ghosts. Lights, there
may be ghosts.”
“Damn, bro, isn’t
that expensive?”
“I bought it second-hand.
It’s so old I have to stick a penny in here just to keep the thing on.” Julio
pointed to a penny jammed a quarter of the way in at the top of the on/off
button. He opened the door to a room. “I’m going to walk in the room, and you
stay here. Hopefully this baby will light up.”
“What do the
different lights mean?”
“It starts out green;
then, as they get closer, the colors change to yellow and orange. If the ghost
is right on top of you, it’s red. It will stay on red as long as the ghost is
near.”
Julio walked around
the perimeter of the small room, keeping the K2 meter pointed in front of
himself. He reached Xavier. “Nothing. Let’s try the next room.”
“Hey, guys!” Nelson
called out from below.
Julio and Xavier
walked to the wooden railing and leaned over. “What?” answered Julio.
“This is boring.
There’s nothing here except some old furniture.”
“Nelson, you can
leave if you want. Thanks for helping us get in. We’ll catch up with you
later.”
“Nah,” his voice
faded as he walked out of sight underneath them. “I got nothing better to do...
which is sad.”
“We’re almost done up
here.” Julio opened the next door, and Xavier shone the light on another empty
room. The rooms were not much bigger than a closet. He took slow, measured
steps around the perimeter of the room, holding the K2 meter out slightly ahead
of him. He was walking back toward the doorway when they heard a hard thud from
downstairs.
The light left the
room as Xavier lit up the railing. “What was that?”
Julio followed the
wall the rest of the way to the door, and then stepped out into the hallway.
“Nelson,” he called out. He watched Xavier’s beam of light flit back and forth
along the main hall below. They heard another hard thud. Nelson’s flashlight
rolled out into view from underneath the landing. A second later, Nelson fell
hard on his backside to the right of the light. Xavier jogged toward the
stairs, his leg apparently feeling much better.
Julio leaned over the
railing. “Nelson, you all right?”
*** *** *** *** *** ***
Author Bio
Coral Russell won the 2003 McCaleb Peace Initiative which produced the non-fiction articles Peace on the Peninsula about South Korean's view on reunification. You can also find various articles written by her on Technorati and BlogCritics. After winning a fiction writing contest (a fluke), she caught the fiction bug. An encounter with something paranormal on a local ghost tour inspired her to start writing the ghost hunter series.
Her titles include Peace on the Peninsula, Twelve Worlds, Playing with Fire, The DIY Guide to Social Media Marketing and eBook Publishing, and Amador Lockdown.
Ms. Russell runs the blog alchemyofscrawl at alchemyofscrawl.wordpress.comStop by for the latest in Indie book reviews, news, and resources. You can stalk the author on Twitter , Facebook, Goodreads, and Google+
*** *** ***
GIVEAWAY
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Giveaway is open internationally to anyone age 13 and older. Giveaway is for one copy of Amador Lockdown, for Kindle or Nook (mobi or epub)
Contest will run from 1-18-12 12:01 until 1-24-12 12:01, EST. Winner will have 48 hours to respond to winning notification or a new winner will be chosen.
Contest is a Rafflecopter Entry, so if you do not see the Rafflecopter below, please refresh your page!
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