A Dance of Darkness and Light. In Volume 2, Hailey and Sean come together to fight an ancient evil that will destroy them and all they care about, but can they survive each other?
Excerpt
This must be what it was like to die of
hypothermia.
She’d always had a strange fascination with
death. What was it like to die of decapitation, or starvation?
Sure, there were worse ways to die, but to die
of cold seemed too simple.
She could almost hear Nana Kerry telling her how
morbid she was being.
Well she was dying, so she figured she had a
right to be a little morbid about it.
Closing her eyes, she let her mind drift to
another time - another place.
Hailey floated over the scene, watching, as if
she were an earthbound ghost pulled into something she had no understanding of.
It was dark, except for the flickering light of
two candelabras. She had no sense of smell or temperature, but the room
reminded her of a cave, or maybe a hidden space in some basement.
Abigail was kneeling before a man with skin so
pale it almost appeared translucent, which was a startling contrast to his
shiny black hair. The intensity brimming in his dark eyes grabbed at another
memory - a real memory.
It was a warm spring day. She was almost nine
years old, which was old enough to walk home from school on her own. At least
that’s what her foster parents thought.
She always picked up her pace when walking
through the alley. Not quite running, but not really taking a leisurely stroll
either.
She froze, except for her eyes, which she forced
to look in the direction of a large dumpster overflowing with trash.
The dog jumped at her from behind the dumpster,
but stopped before reaching the light. Yelping, it scurried back into the
darkness, but not before she’d gotten a good look at the Boxer’s eyes.
The dog’s eyes were insane with rage.
Rabies. That’s what it had to be.
A rabid animal would avoid the light. She’d
heard that once on a nature show.
Maybe she’d be okay, as long as she walked
slowly.
The dog growled, but didn’t come after her
again. Hailey kept moving. Once she was by the dumpster, she turned so that she
was walking backwards.
No way was she going to turn her back on that
dog.
After she’d gone twenty feet, she turned and
ran like the hounds of hell were after her.
She got away, but she’d never forgotten the
look in that dog’s eyes.
Still it didn’t end there. There was dimension
to his eyes, and a strange kind of beauty that she’d never seen before.
That wasn’t really true.
The man she was looking at wasn’t a man at all.
He was a vampire.
“Do you have Kathrina?” he asked, his voice as
smooth as silk, but at the same time, managed to be as sharp as a razor.
The man’s eyes narrowed and his voice grew even
sharper. “What about the girl of light? Do you have her?”
Again Abigail shook her head. “Not exactly, but
we have made sure she is in a safe place.”
Waving away her words, the vampire jumped to
his feet and began pacing the floor. “Your plans have been useless. We are no
closer to Kathrina than we were a year ago.”
“That’s not true.” Sparks showered from the
witch’s eyes, but her voice remained calm, even soothing.
“That is a flimsy plan, Miss Abigail.” The
vampire made no effort to hide his distaste of the witch.
Ignoring his comment, Abigail went on. “We will
use Hailey to convince the Light Seekers to help us. One of them is a close
friend of Kathrina’s.”
“He wants the girl, Hailey,” she told him.
“But you don’t have the girl!” he shouted.
“Anything could happen.”
“Even so, we will get Kathrina. We have a
backup plan.”
“That is?”
“We will grab her
ourselves.”
The vision faded.
Hailey struggled to hold onto it, but the image and
voices were gone.
