The Girls In The Basement Are Restless Tonight

J. & K. took me on a brief tour of the Catholic University campus this evening.  In the rain.  Greater love hath no woman for her friend than to help her scout book locations after dark in the cold December rain.  Fortunately, the visuals were lovely.  A male friend they hadn't seen in a while tagged along.  I'd forgotten how very very cute college guys can be.
No I hadn't, but let's keep that our little secret.  I wouldn't want to depress the dh, certainly not on a night when he did the dishes without prompting.  :-)
Anyway, I was finally settling down with the cat to finish Carole Nelson Douglas's second Delilah Street novel, Brimstone Kiss, when the opening to my demented Urban Fantasy started whispering in my head.  I don't know if this will survive to the final version, but it feels like a good way to start the first draft.

Going up two levels in EverCrack with a guy you know from Math 101 does not a deathless romance make. But try telling that to a freshman.

No, you try. I’m not that dumb. I was doing what they tell you in all those student safety lectures. I was varying my routine so he couldn't stalk me, taking the long way round from my last class in the Hartke Building through the side door of Ward Hall and out front. That was the plan, anyway, until I walked past the dumpster outside Ward Hall and it groaned. 

I froze. That part of Catholic University isn’t dangerous, or it shouldn’t be.  Our campus rent-a-cops occupy the building between Hartke and Ward. But all three buildings face Harewood Road, where CUA meets the big, scary badlands of Northeast Washington, DC.

But. But. And I so never took a self-defense course in my life.          

The groaning got louder. It sounded like somebody trying to pray smothered under a blanket—or the lumpy plastic tarp wedged between the dumpster and the low retaining wall behind it.

I edged closer. I knew it was a bad idea, but my feet kept shuffling in the stupid direction. 

Hugs and smiles,
Jean Marie
*who's kinda sorry we didn't get any snow--of the ordinary kind*