Witch Creek by Laura Bickle

Witch Creek

The Wildlands Series

Book Two

Laura Bickle

Genre: Dark Fantasy 

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Date of Publication: Feb. 27, 2018

ISBN: 978-0062567314

ASIN: B071VBHPW7

Number of pages: 384

Word Count: 88,160

Book Description:

In the backcountry of Yellowstone, evil moves below the surface . . .

Following Nine of Stars comes the next chapter in Laura Bickle's critically acclaimed Wildlands series.

As the daughter of an alchemist, Petra Dee has battled supernatural horrors and experienced astonishing wonders. But there’s no magic on earth that can defeat her recent cancer diagnosis, or help find her missing husband, Gabriel. Still, she would bet all her remaining days that the answer to his disappearance lies in the dark subterranean world beneath the Rutherford Ranch on the outskirts of Temperance, Wyoming.

Gabe is being held prisoner by the sheriff and heir to the ranch, Owen Rutherford. Owen is determined to harness the power of the Tree of Life—and he needs Gabe to reveal its magic. Secretly, the sheriff has also made a pact to free a creature of the underground, a flesh-devouring mermaid. Muirenn has vowed to exact vengeance on Gabe, who helped imprison her, but first . . . she's hungry. Once freed, she will swim into Yellowstone—to feed.

With her coyote sidekick Sig, Petra must descend into the underworld to rescue Gabe before it's too late . . . for both of them.

HarperVoyager       Amazon      Kindle      

 BN     Books a Million      Indiebound

Excerpt:

Peering through the cattails, she saw a man with a fishing pole, standing on an outcropping. He seemed alone, caught in a bit of reverie, gazing at his line skipping along the surface of the water.

She dipped below the surface of the water, toward the shiver of the fishing line. With green-spotted fingers, she lifted the struggling fish from the hook. The line jerked away.

The man swore.

Muirenn lifted her head above the water.

“Holy shit.” The man stumbled backward. “I didn’t realize you were swimming there . . . I . . .”

His expression changed from embarrassment to curiosity as he looked at her. The pupils of his eyes dilated. “Who . . . are you?”

Muirenn gripped the fish close to her chest, giving a small smile.

The fisherman crouched on the rock, setting his pole beside him. “Wow. You’re uh . . . green? Is that real?”

Muirenn cocked her head and slipped forward a bit in the water. The edge of her tail skimmed above the surface.

“Is that like . . . one of those tails that the girls have at that park in Florida? For a movie or something?” His suntanned brow wrinkled. “No. That’s real,” he decided. “You, um . . . want the fish? You can have it.”

She was within arm’s length of him. She released the squirming fish into the water.

“You wanted to let it go? Look, I . . .”

The man talked too much. She swam closer, tentatively.

The fisherman looked at her, at her dappled skin and the dark rust hair spreading into the water. She wouldn’t ordinarily have been so bold. The weight off her tail was going to her head. She let him take in the black of her eyes, the gills on her throat. He gazed in wonder, and his fingers twitched to a small square piece of plastic on top of his tackle box.

“Can I take your picture? What . . . are you?”

A smile played across her lips, and she spoke to him in a silvery voice. “I’m the Mermaid.”

“Wow. I . . . wow. I’m, uh, Norm. Do I, like, make a wish or something?”

“You can, if you want. I’ll listen.”

She reached up with delicate fingers to touch him. Her fingers brushed the pockets of his fishing vest, playing with wonder over the bits and baubles there meant to lure the attention of fish. The man forgot about his camera and stared, transfixed.

Muirenn reached up for his collar . . .

. . . and dragged him down into the water.

He splashed and flailed. She brought him down—down to the bottom of the creek. It wasn’t so far, but it was far enough for a land dweller. He couldn’t fight her for long. He thrashed until his lungs grew heavy with creek water. He convulsed as the lack of oxygen reached his heart and filtered up to his brain. And then he stopped.

Muirenn grinned, showing row upon row of shark-like teeth. She ripped off his arm and began to chew. It had been so long since she’d had anything but the errant fish that wandered into her realm . . . this was a meal worth waiting for.

The creek ran red.

Red as the idle red-and-white bobber drifting on the surface of the water.

About the Author:

Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology – Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs, also writing contemporary fantasy novels under the name Alayna Williams.

Her work has been included in the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016.

Website: http://www.laurabickle.com/

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/Laura_Bickle

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The Alchemy of Wolves By Laura Bickle

Alchemy is a strange and beautiful art. Its practitioners sought to transform base metals into gold and search for the secret to immortality. Through a series of destructive and constructive processes, an element would be purified and transformed. Some symbols appear and reappear in the texts as secret notations for processes and elements, and I love playing with them as plot points. Wolves are one of those points in NINE OF STARS.

NINE OF STARS centers around a pack of wolves, the Nine Stars pack. Once upon a time, they were human shapeshifters, but they forgot their magic and have remained suspended in the bodies of wolves for centuries. They’ve had a rough go of it, lately – it’s been a tough winter, and they’re searching for new hunting grounds. In doing so, they’ve wandered into the territory of an eighteenth-century spirit, Skinflint Jack, who harbors a grudge against wolves. Jack pursues them across the snows of Yellowstone, a magical predator chasing once-magical prey.

Petra Dee, my protagonist, is a geologist on the trail of the wolves. Though she’s the daughter of an alchemist, she’s an ordinary woman, with no magic of her own. She’s trying to stop Skinflint Jack using her wits and the tools at her disposal, whatever she can find or cobble together. 

In alchemy, the Grey Wolf is used as a symbol for antimony. Antimony sometimes forms a silvery starlike structure – it’s very pretty, in many of its states. It’s a symbol for the wild, animal nature of the world. Antimony devours nearby elements, and is one of the elements traditionally used in bullet casting. 

Antimony is also an important element in the separation process of alchemy, when elements are purified, and the alchemist must decide what’s worth saving from the fire and reaction of the process – essentially discerning what could be gold, and what is likely worthless. I began to think how this might relate to my plot.

I decided to make antimony Jack’s weakness – the Grey Wolf is his nemesis and also his vulnerability. When Petra discovers this, she uses antimony to cast bullets in the hopes of striking him down. It’s a difficult process in the conditions of the snowy backcountry, a long-shot experiment…but it will be worth it if this symbol of the wolves can be used to put Skinflint Jack in the ground, where he belongs.  

Nine of Stars 

A Wildlands Novel   

Laura Bickle

On Sale Date: December 27, 2016

ISBN: 9780062437662 

Genre:  Contemporary Fantasy 

Publisher: Harper Voyager

About the Book:

Following on the heels of her critically acclaimed prequel novels Dark Alchemy and Mercury Retrograde comes the first installment in Laura Bickle’s dark contemporary fantasy series, Nine of Stars, a Wildlands Novel

Winter has always been a deadly season in Temperance, but this time, there’s more to fear than just the cold…

As the daughter of an alchemist, Petra Dee has faced all manner of occult horrors—especially since her arrival in the small town of Temperance, Wyoming. But she can’t explain the creature now stalking the backcountry of Yellowstone, butchering wolves and leaving only their skins behind in the snow. Rumors surface of the return of Skinflint Jack, a nineteenth-century wraith that kills in fulfillment of an ancient bargain.

The new sheriff in town, Owen Rutherford, isn’t helping matters. He’s a dangerously haunted man on the trail of both an unsolved case and a fresh kill—a bizarre murder leading him right to Petra’s partner Gabriel. And while Gabe once had little to fear from the mortal world, he’s all too human now. This time, when violence hits close to home, there are no magical solutions.

It’s up to Petra and her coyote sidekick Sig to get ahead of both Owen and the unnatural being hunting them all—before the trail turns deathly cold.

Amazon     HarperCollins       Kobo       GooglePlay       BN

About the Author:

Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology-Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs. Her work has been included in the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016.

More information about Laura’s work can be found at www.laurabickle.com

https://twitter.com/Laura_Bickle   

https://www.facebook.com/Author.Laura.Bickle

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Raven Familiars in the Dark Alchemy Series with Laura Bickle

Raven Familiars

Ravens play a pretty large part in alchemy. Classical alchemy sought to conjure gold from base metals and to create the elixir of eternal life. There are seven processes the alchemist must accomplish in order to achieve a perfect transformation: calcination, dissolution, coagulation, sublimation, mortification, separation, and conjunction. Ravens are the symbol of the mortification stage, the stage of alchemical death. 

While creating the magical world of MERCURY RETROGRADE, I was pretty fascinated with the history of ravens in alchemy. In MERCURY RETROGRADE, ravens became familiars for a group of undead ranch hands called the Hanged Men. The Hanged Men have haunted the small western town of Temperance since the Gold Rush days. The town was founded by an alchemist, Lascaris, and they were one of his incomplete experiments on the road to figuring out the secret of eternal life. 

The Hanged Men were made at the feet of the Lunaria, a magical tree standing in an empty field. The scarred tree stands above a warren of tunnels that creep miles underground – so deep that the no one really knows their full reach. The Lunaria symbolizes the “as above, so below” alchemical principle, as its roots dig into the earth and the branches brush the sky in perfect symmetry. The Hanged Men were executed at this tree, and the tree grants them immortality…of a sort. An archaic term for a gallows is the “raven-stone,” a place they can never escape.

As far as being undead goes, these guys got a raw deal. Some of the early Hanged Men have retained most of their memory and self-awareness, when it isn’t being partitioned off into the bodies of ravens to spy on their enemies. But later generations received less consciousness as the power of the tree waned. Some can’t talk, and a few aren’t even passably human. 

The men must return to the tree each night to decompose and regenerate, and they can’t wander very far from it. And that decomposition and regeneration? Not a pretty process. They’re stuck in the mortification stage of alchemy, experiencing death over and over each night. 

Gabriel was one of the first of the Hanged Men. He came to Temperance more than a hundred years ago, as a Pinkerton agent sent by Lascaris’s investors to figure out where all the gold was coming from. His specialty was the arcane and supernatural – the nineteenth century’s answer to the X-Files. Alas, things did not go so well for him. He was hanged by Lascaris from the branches of the Lunaria, and has remained in Temperance ever since, pretending to be a ranch hand for successive generations of cattle barons. It’s like a coating of dust on a rattlesnake – camouflage that works right up until someone steps on the snake. 

But times have changed. The tree is dying. It’s shedding leaves out of season, dropping branches, and the energy slips away from its brittle roots. The Hanged Men have tried all they know to feed it, but it is clear that it will not last much longer…and neither will they.

Their last hope is to find a magical creature – a basilisk, awakened by seismic tremors in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park, leaving a trail of poisoned bodies in its wake. The blood from the right side of the basilisk grants eternal life, while blood from the left is certain death. The Hanged Men send their ravens far and wide, hoping to find the creature before humans capture it for their own purposes. 

It’s a terrible risk, with a terrible price – the Hanged Men are as vulnerable as any other men to the basilisk’s venomous powers. But they must find it and make an offering to the tree before it dies…and the Hanged Men, along with it. 

Mercury Retrograde

A Dark Alchemy Novel

Book Two

Laura Bickle

On-Sale 10/27/2015 

ISBN: 9780062437617

About the Book:

Geologist Petra Dee and the citizens of Temperance, Wyoming come up against a venomous enemy, not to mention a biker gang that’s hell on wheels, in the second book in Laura Bickle’s Dark Alchemy series.

Something venomous has come to Temperance…

It’s been two months since Petra Dee and her coyote sidekick Sig faced off against Temperance’s resident alchemist, but things are far from quiet. When an Internet video of a massive snake in the backcountry of Yellowstone goes viral, a chase for the mythical basilisk is on. Monster hunters swarm into the area, and never one to pass up the promise of discovery, Petra joins in the search.

Among the newcomers is a snake cult on wheels - the biker gang Sisters of Serpens. Unlike some, the Sisters don’t want to kill the basilisk - they want to worship it. But things get complicated when the basilisk develops a taste for human flesh that rivals the Sisters’ own murderous skills.

Meanwhile, the alchemical tree of life is dying, and the undead Hanged Men of Temperance who depend on it know the basilisk may be their last chance for survival.

With time running out for everyone around her, Petra will be forced to decide who survives and who she must leave behind in this action-packed sequel to Dark Alchemy.

Amazon    BN   iTunes

About the Author:

Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology - Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs. Her work has been included in the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016.

More information about Laura’s work can be found at www.laurabickle.com

https://twitter.com/Laura_Bickle   

https://www.facebook.com/Author.Laura.Bickle

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Midnight Snack- Flash Fiction by Laura Bickle

Midnight Snack
By Laura Bickle

Something jerked his tail. Hard.

Sparky awoke with a start. Instinctively, he clutched his Gloworm toy close to his body, its plastic face lighting up. Sparky lifted his spade-shaped salamander head, blinked sleepily.

His tail trailed off the edge of the bed into darkness. He slowly reeled it back from the edge. His tongue flickered out of his mouth, sticky from sleep. He smelled the sour, corrupted smell of a ghost. Ghosts were like roaches. They came at night, creatures feeding off the emotional debris of humans. Annoying pests.

Sparky’s human lay stretched on the other side of the bed, asleep. Anya’s head was jammed under the pillows, muffling her oblivious snoring. Sparky shoved his beloved toy closer to Anya for safekeeping.

He padded to the edge of the bed and peered, upside-down, into the blackness. Something pale and diaphanous seethed under the bed. Sparky pressed his feathery gill-fronds forward, hissing.

The thing in the darkness hissed back. It scuttled forward, charging at Sparky. Sparky snapped at it, and it retreated.

Sparky lashed his tail in irritation. Stupid little spirit. Probably had hitched a ride with some of Anya’s garage-sale relics. He hopped back into bed, stomping over Anya. He planted his feet in her ribs and licked her shoulder to wake her. Anya was a Lantern, a spiritual medium who devoured ghosts. She’d eat it for breakfast. If he could get her ass out of bed.

“Sparky.” Anya wrapped her arms over her head, mumbling: “Go back to your bed.”

The salamander glared at the pet bed on the floor in disdain. That was for dogs, not elemental familiars. Insulting.

Sparky mewed insistently. Anya swatted at him, knocking the Gloworm off the floor.

Sparky huffed, emitting a raspberry-like sound from his gill-fronds. He hopped down to the floor to rescue his toy from the thing under the bed. If Anya wasn’t going to wake up, he’d have to get rid of the ghost himself.

White light oozed from under the bed. The pathetic little ghost wasn’t even powerful enough to coalesce into a shape with fixed boundaries, just a puddle with tendrils reaching for the toy. When the ectoplasmic fingers touched the Gloworm, the plastic face lit up.

Not my toy!

Sparky pounced on the ghost, tearing into it with his powerful salamander jaws. It squeaked and growled, but Sparky didn’t let go. The ectoplasm felt cool in his mouth as he shredded it, like a dog with a wet newspaper. Three or four quick gulps, and the ghost was gone.

“Mmmph.” Anya slurred, snagging the toy to toss it onto the bed next to her.

Sparky leapt up beside it. He stretched his distended belly out beside Anya’s hip, belching a sulfurous bubble of gas.

From the mound of pillows, Anya snored.

Sparky rolled his eyes. Keeping this human safe was tough work for a familiar.

Get more of Sparky in Laura Bickle's Embers and Sparks, you can even read a guest blog form his point of view at The WormHole

EMBERS

Anya Kalinczyk #1

Pocket Juno Books

Mass Market Paperback, $7.99

ISBN: 978-1439167656

April 2010

“One of the most promising debut novels I’ve read in a great while… I’d highly recommend this book to anybody who reads fantasy. It reminds me in many regards…of another exceptional first novel…Emma Bull’s seminal War for the Oaks, and there’s not much higher praise that I can give.”

—Elizabeth Bear on Tor.com

“Bickle has something great in Anya. Embers has everything: demons, ghosts, dragons, love, sex, police, and murder.”

—M.L.N. Hanover, bestselling author of Darker Angels

“Gritty but never grim, Embers is a truly urban fantasy, where the soul of a city haunts every page. I can’t wait for more of Anya and the unforgettable Sparky!”

—Jeri Smith-Ready, award-winning author of Bad to the Bone and Shade

Unemployment, despair, anger--visible and invisible unrest feed the undercurrent of Detroit's unease. A city increasingly invaded by phantoms now faces a malevolent force that further stokes fear and chaos throughout the city.

Anya Kalinczyk spends her days as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department, and her nights pursuing malicious spirits with a team of eccentric ghost hunters. Anya--who is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern--suspects a supernatural arsonist is setting blazes to summon a fiery ancient entity that will leave the city in cinders. By Devil's Night, the spell will be complete, unless Anya--with the help of her salamander familiar and the paranormal investigating team --can stop it.

Anya's accustomed to danger and believes herself inured to loneliness and loss. But this time she's risking everything: her city, her soul, and a man who sees and accepts her for everything she is. Keeping all three safe will be the biggest challenge she's ever faced.

A free excerpt is available here.

EMBERS is available now from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

SPARKS
Anya Kalinczyk #2
Pocket Juno Books
Mass Market Paperback, $7.99
ISBN 978-1439167687
September 2010

The second book in Bickle’s series about Anya Kalinczyk is just as wonderful as the first—Anya is a compelling and likable protagonist and Bickle does an outstanding job in her portrayal of the city of Detroit; there are ruins, yes, but also hope in the ashes. Anya never takes herself too seriously and there is a scene in a baby supercenter that is absolutely not to be missed. (4 stars)
- RT Book Reviews

...a charming and inventive read.
-Elizabeth Bear, Realms of Fantasy Magazine, December 2010


WITHOUT A TRACE...

Anya Kalinczyk is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern, who holds down a day job as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department—while working 24/7 to exterminate malicious spirits haunting a city plagued by unemployment and despair.

Along with her inseparable salamander familiar, Sparky, Anya has seen, and even survived, all manner of fiery hell—but her newest case sparks suspicions of a bizarre phenomenon that no one but her eccentric team of ghost hunters might believe: spontaneous human combustion.

After fire consumes the home of elderly Jasper Bernard, Anya is stunned to discover his remains—or, more precisely, a lack of them; even the fiercest fires leave some trace of their victims—and she is sure this was no naturally occurring blaze. Soon she’s unearthed a connection to a celebrity psychic who preys on Detroit’s poor, promising miracles for money. But Hope Solomon wants more—she’s collecting spirits, and in a frantic race against time, Anya will face down an evil adversary who threatens her fragile relationship with her lover, her beloved Sparky’s freshly hatched newts, and the wandering souls of the entire city.

SPARKS is available for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble

A free excerpt is available here.

 

Would You Like to Have Author Laura Bickle Be a Guest at Your Blog?

Laura Bickle has signed on to be one of my PR clients. I am not currently setting up a tour but we are scheduling several stops per month at interested blogs and websites.

If you are interested in having Laura be your guest please email me for details. We are currently booking spots for June, July and beyond.

RoxanneRhoads@aol.com

EMBERS

Anya Kalinczyk #1

Pocket Juno Books

Mass Market Paperback, $7.99

ISBN: 978-1439167656

April 2010

“One of the most promising debut novels I’ve read in a great while… I’d highly recommend this book to anybody who reads fantasy. It reminds me in many regards…of another exceptional first novel…Emma Bull’s seminal War for the Oaks, and there’s not much higher praise that I can give.”

—Elizabeth Bear on Tor.com

“Bickle has something great in Anya. Embers has everything: demons, ghosts, dragons, love, sex, police, and murder.”

—M.L.N. Hanover, bestselling author of Darker Angels

“Gritty but never grim, Embers is a truly urban fantasy, where the soul of a city haunts every page. I can’t wait for more of Anya and the unforgettable Sparky!”

—Jeri Smith-Ready, award-winning author of Bad to the Bone and Shade

Unemployment, despair, anger--visible and invisible unrest feed the undercurrent of Detroit's unease. A city increasingly invaded by phantoms now faces a malevolent force that further stokes fear and chaos throughout the city.

Anya Kalinczyk spends her days as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department, and her nights pursuing malicious spirits with a team of eccentric ghost hunters. Anya--who is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern--suspects a supernatural arsonist is setting blazes to summon a fiery ancient entity that will leave the city in cinders. By Devil's Night, the spell will be complete, unless Anya--with the help of her salamander familiar and the paranormal investigating team --can stop it.

Anya's accustomed to danger and believes herself inured to loneliness and loss. But this time she's risking everything: her city, her soul, and a man who sees and accepts her for everything she is. Keeping all three safe will be the biggest challenge she's ever faced.

A free excerpt is available here.

EMBERS is available now from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

SPARKS

Anya Kalinczyk #2

Pocket Juno Books

Mass Market Paperback, $7.99

ISBN 978-1439167687

September 2010

The second book in Bickle’s series about Anya Kalinczyk is just as wonderful as the first—Anya is a compelling and likable protagonist and Bickle does an outstanding job in her portrayal of the city of Detroit; there are ruins, yes, but also hope in the ashes. Anya never takes herself too seriously and there is a scene in a baby supercenter that is absolutely not to be missed. (4 stars)

- RT Book Reviews

...a charming and inventive read.

-Elizabeth Bear, Realms of Fantasy Magazine, December 2010

WITHOUT A TRACE...

Anya Kalinczyk is the rarest type of psychic medium, a Lantern, who holds down a day job as an arson investigator with the Detroit Fire Department—while working 24/7 to exterminate malicious spirits haunting a city plagued by unemployment and despair. Along with her inseparable salamander familiar, Sparky, Anya has seen, and even survived, all manner of fiery hell—but her newest case sparks suspicions of a bizarre phenomenon that no one but her eccentric team of ghost hunters might believe: spontaneous human combustion.

After fire consumes the home of elderly Jasper Bernard, Anya is stunned to discover his remains—or, more precisely, a lack of them; even the fiercest fires leave some trace of their victims—and she is sure this was no naturally occurring blaze. Soon she’s unearthed a connection to a celebrity psychic who preys on Detroit’s poor, promising miracles for money. But Hope Solomon wants more—she’s collecting spirits, and in a frantic race against time, Anya will face down an evil adversary who threatens her fragile relationship with her lover, her beloved Sparky’s freshly hatched newts, and the wandering souls of the entire city.

SPARKS is available for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble

A free excerpt is available here.

Devil's Night Terrors with Laura Bickle

Detroit’s a city lush with storytelling possibilities. The landscape provides so many real-world places with history behind them that made Detroit an irresistible setting for EMBERS and SPARKS. Given the heroine’s ties to fire as an arson investigator and the owner of a fire salamander familiar, Detroit was a natural choice as a location. It’s got a history of fires going back to the one that leveled the city in 1805, right up to Devil’s Night arsons in the twentieth century.

Devil's Night was traditionally the night before Halloween, October 30. In the 1930s, it began as general mischief, but escalated to arson and serious crime by the 1970s. From the 1970s through the 1990s, hundreds of arsons and vandalisms were reported each year on the days surrounding Devil's Night.

The crimes prompted the organization of Angel's Night in 1995. In 1995, more than 30,000 volunteers patrolled the city. Devil's Night crime began to decline from then to the present day.

In 2009, groups such as Blight Busters and New York's Guardian Angels gathered volunteers to patrol Detroit's neighborhoods, concerned that the economic downturn that has struck the city will fuel more crime. The real estate crisis has left thousands of homes abandoned, which may be fuel for further arsons for opportunistic or insurance fraud purposes.

I'm hopeful that history will remain just that - history - and that there will be a quiet night this year. Fire makes wonderful fodder for fiction, in terms of fire salamanders and dragons...but no one wants to see it come to life.

Laura Bickle is an urban fantasy writer, tech nerd, and feral cat rancher. She’s the author of Embers and Sparks for Pocket-Juno Books in 2010.

More information is available at www.salamanderstales.com

If you've read Sparks already you should check out this article and photo slide show of the Michigan Central Depot- the same train depot featured in Sparks.