Easy Pickings

mumble: “I mean, God only knows if it would work, but hell, even if it doesn’t . . .”

Jane looked at the dangly earring, then twisted a slow grin. “You’re all right, Joanne Walker.” She took an ash wood, silver-tipped stake out of her hair and rubbed the wood across her gold nugget necklace as if anointing it. She tossed it to me. “I don’t know, rub it and click your heels together three times, Dorothy. We’ll see what happens.”

I caught the stake with a stupid twisty grin of my own. “You’re not bad yourself, Jane Yellowrock. Tell you what, I’ll see you on the flip side.”

We turned and walked away from one another, away from that world inverted.

. . . the end?

Acknowledgements

Fans are the only reason we have careers. Fans keep meals on our tables, and house payments made, and boots purchased. And most important, fans give us a reason to keep writing. Your letters and emails and chats keep us going when we are tired, overworked, and gave ourselves too many deadlines.

So, this is to recognize you, the fans. Easy Pickings is yours, written with you in mind, hoping you love this third-world-new-reality we’ve created herein.

Thank you for making it possible for us to write it.

—Faith and Catie

About the Authors

Faith Hunter was born in Louisiana and raised all over the south. She writes the Skinwalker series, featuring Jane Yellowrock. Her Rogue Mage novels, a dark, urban fantasy series feature Thorn St. Croix, a stone mage in a post-apocalyptic alternate reality. These novels are the basis for Rogue Mage RPG and World Book.

Hunter fell in love with reading in fifth grade, and best loved SiFi, fantasy, and gothic. She decided to become a writer in high school, when a teacher told her she had talent. Now, she writes full-time and works full-time in a hospital lab, (for the benefits) tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for travel, jewelry making, whitewater kayaking, and writing. She and her husband love to RV, traveling with their rescued Pomeranians to whitewater rivers all over the Southeast.

For more, please see  www.faithhunter.net,  www.gwenhunter.com &  www.magicalwords.net.

C.E. Murphy began writing around age six, when she submitted three poems to a school publication. The teacher producing the magazine selected (inevitably) the one she thought was by far the worst, but also told her to keep writing, which she has. She has held the usual grab-bag of jobs usually seen in an authorial biography, including public library volunteer, archival assistant, cannery worker, and web designer. Writing books is better.

She was born and raised in Alaska, and now lives with her family in her ancestral homeland of Ireland, which is a magical land where it rains a lot but winter rarely actually arrives.

More information about C.E. Murphy, her career, and her writing can be found at  www.cemurphy.net.

Also by Faith Hunter

The Jane Yellowrock Books

STRANGE BREW*

SKINWALKER

BLOOD CROSS

MERCY BLADE

RAVEN CURSED (Jan 2012)

CAT TALES (e-book)

*anthology containing the short story 'Signatures of the Dead'

The Rogue Mage Series

BLOODRING

SERAPHS

HOST

ROGUE MAGE RPG and World Book (2012)

CE Murphy

The Walker Papers

URBAN SHAMAN

WINTER MOON*

THUNDERBIRD FALLS

COYOTE DREAMS

WALKING DEAD

DEMON HUNTS

SPIRIT DANCES

RAVEN CALLS (March 2012)

*anthology containing the novella 'Banshee Cries'

The Old Races Universe

HEART OF STONE

HOUSE OF CARDS

HANDS OF FLAME

BABA YAGA'S DAUGHTER

& OTHER TALES OF THE OLD RACES (Sept 2012)

The Worldwalker Duology

TRUTHSEEKER

WAYFINDER

The Inheritors' Cycle

THE QUEEN'S BASTARD

THE PRETENDER'S CROW