Angel Town

A Note on Kismet

Hopefully, after six books, I have once again earned a little leeway to bore you, dear Reader, with a closing word.

Jill Kismet started out as a “what-if?” character. I was tired of paranormal heroes and heroines who had adversarial relationships with law enforcement. If there were things that went bump in the night, I reasoned, the cops (and other first responders) would be more than glad to have a specialist on hand to deal with them. I asked myself what that specialist might look like, what kind of person would be attracted to that type of job. How they would deal with the stress of the paranormal, what sort of enemies they might face.

However, when Jill strolled onto the page in Hunter’s Prayer (which I actually wrote first) and began speaking, something much deeper than a “what if?” happened. It’s not the type of work you can put on a business card, she said, and I immediately felt a galvanic thrill along every nerve ending I owned. The more I wrote, the more it seemed Jill had just been waiting for me to sit still long enough to hear her. (I didn’t even know why she’d chosen the name “Kismet” until Flesh Circus.)

It is very unfair of me to compare characters, though such comparisons are all but inevitable. I’m often asked about Jill and Dante Valentine: if they’re sisters, if they came from the same place. They most emphatically do not. Danny Valentine is a broken character. Jill is not broken—bent a little, maybe, but still whole. I think that is the critical difference between them, though they both have smart mouths and a love of weaponry, as well as a streak of sheer adrenaline-junkie grade-A crazy.

Hey, write what you know, right?

Writing Kismet took me through some pretty dark times. I won’t deny that sometimes, writing a gruesome scene—the clinic in Hunter’s Prayer, the scurf-hole in Redemption Alley, the Cirque itself, at Carper’s graveside, the scrabble out of her own grave—I found solace in the fact that no matter how bad I had it, my character had it worse. I also can’t deny that many of the issues I wrestle with found an expression in her. As I noted in my goodbye essay on the Valentine series, any story about the possible future—or even about an alternate present—ends up saying far more about the writer than anything else. The filter the story passes through shapes it, for good or for ill.

Oddly, the character who affected me the most over the Kismet series isn’t Jill. It’s Perry.

If I did not feel physically filthy, if I didn’t crave a hot shower and scrubbing every time he wandered onto the page, I went back and dug deeper and did it again. As much as I loathe him, I ended up pitying him as well. That’s the tragedy of hellbreed—they carry their punishment with them. As Milton remarked, “The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”

Human beings are very good at doing this as well.

Other characters came from different places. Saul was, in my original plans, only on board for one book. He was supposed to be a cautionary tale about how people with itchy trigger fingers and vigilante complexes are hard to have relationships with. Nobody was more surprised than me when the two of them made it work. I am asked many questions about Saul, and I have always wanted to note that if Saul’s and Jill’s genders were reversed, the vast majority of those questions would never see the light of day. They would simply match a number of assumptions and be let go.

Gilberto surprised me too. I had no idea why he was so important in Redemption Alley, but he literally would not go away. It was only later that I understood why. Monty and the various Santa Luz cops—fighting the good fight, being Jill’s backup, extending to her the rough take-no-prisoners compassion they give to each other—are homages to the silent heroes who, every day, respond first and do their best to keep other people safe. More than that, however, they are people Jill cares about. If there is a grace that saves her from becoming what Perry wants her to be, it lies in that caring.

Galina represents another type of courage—those who quietly and patiently guard and build. And dear, sweet Hutch, bulletproof in cyberspace and a weenie everywhere else, is probably the most gallant of the bunch.

Still, I had no Grand Statement I wanted to make with Jill. I had no agenda, unless it was to tell a good story in as unflinching a manner as possible. Jill’s job is not to look away; in that, hunters have a great deal in common with writers. I firmly believe that if a writer is honest, if the writer doesn’t punk out or look away, that their story will have the ring of truth, and it will reach the readers it needs to. I have done the best I could.

I am sad to say goodbye to Jill. But it’s time. Other stories are knocking at the door. All that remains is to thank you, dear Reader. Without you, this would be pretty useless, right? So, thank you very much for reading. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. And I cannot wait to tell you more stories.

But there will always be a part of me in Santa Luz, watching the moon rise over the bad old lady herself, while rooftops lie in shadow and neon smears the street. There will always be a jingle of silver flechettes and the creak of leather, and the sense that someone is watching even the darkest corners of the city. Someone is out there to right the wrongs, someone is going toe-to-toe and looking to settle the score. In some part of me, Jill Kismet will always be on the job.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.