Thursday, March 25, 2021

INTERVIEW WITH AIDEN LUCID (The SCAVENGER)


March is almost over. Spring is in the air in this hemisphere. How are you handling things? We have author    in today to add a little excitement.Welcome

SC: Tell me a little bit about your main character of this book.

AL: Jared Duval is a 17 year-old American kid who always felt a little awkward but now is becoming comfortable in his own skin. He’s gay and while some of his family may have problems with that, he has three friends who can accept him for who he is. Jared soon learns that he comes from a long line of mediums and has psychic gifts too. These are going to be very useful in saving both himself and his friends in a battle against an ancient demonic force.

SC: I bet they will.  Do you believe in the paranormal and if so, do you have an experience you can share?

AL: Yes, I do believe in the paranormal and have had mostly positive experiences. Here are just three examples. One night in May 2008, I was alone in my room. There was nobody else in my house. I was drifting off to sleep when suddenly, the whole room became infused with the smell of roses. A woman’s voice said ‘Hello’ in a very kind way. I woke up, startled, but felt completely safe. It only took me a few minutes to return to sleep.

SC: I think it would have taken me a while longer. Go on…

AL: A year prior to that incident, my friend passed away from cancer. She was only 27. On the morning of her passing, she appeared in my room. That freaked me out and as embarrassed as I am to admit it, I pulled the bedclothes over my head, praying that she’d go away. At the time I knew the girl was in hospital and close to death. Obviously this was her way of saying goodbye. Immediately I felt guilty and asked God to give me one more chance to see her. So an hour later I woke up and I looked over. Standing by the door was my friend. She waved goodbye and I waved back. She did a little happy dance and walked through the door to her eternal rest.

SC: I'm glad you got the second chance.

AL: I saved the most profound experience for last. In April 2002, my grandfather passed away. We were very close. When he was alive, my grandparents used to say the Holy Rosary together. In May, I began saying the Holy Rosary, and to say that it was a life-changing experience would be an understatement. The moment I started reciting it, an immense feeling of peace came over me like never before. I was in total bliss. A few months later I began writing. All these stories just started flowing out of me like a vault had just been unlocked and they spilled out. The Holy Rosary has continued to change my life in lots of positive ways and I actually made a video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMnXU8EQTgQ&t=132s

SC: Thank you for sharing all this. What titles are you working on now that you can tell us about?

AL: At the moment, I’m working on The Scavenger’s sequel, Unlucky Charm, while also plotting out a new YA fantasy series. I’m also putting the finishing touches to, Deadly Pursuits, a sequel to my YA fantasy novel, The Lost Son

Perfect. Thanks for stopping in. We're going to look at your novel now.


The Scavenger
The Hopps Town Series
Book One 
Aidan Lucid

Genre: Horror
Publisher: Jongleur Books
Date of Publication: January 10th, 2021.
ISBN: 979-8593579034
ASIN: B08SPZFVLX
Number of pages: 146
Word Count: Approx. 37000
Cover Artist: SmStudioinc 

Tagline: Three Separate Wishes. One Twisted Nightmare!

Book Description: 

Just like Hopps Town, their humble home, Jessica Barlow, Jared Duval, and Adrian Cole are fostering dark secrets. Plagued by loss, cruelty, and physical abuse, these friends are kindred spirits, bound by anguish and elusive dreams. They’re soon to find the key to change, but any happy future will demand they face a haunting past and brave a lethal present.

Deep in the forest on the outskirts of town, aging and nearly forgotten, there stands a well from another time. Happening upon this relic, Adrian goads his companions to join him in making a wish. Soon, difficult though it is to admit, their luckless lives do seem to shift. The only problem is, the changes aren’t at all as they’d imagined. Seemingly, they’ve only left the pan to face the fire.

Should they hope to both survive and thrive, they’ll need to pool their wits and draw on mystic inner-power. Solving Hopps Town’s greatest mystery now means life or death.

Amazon

Excerpt

After drying herself off, Jessica watched some TV in her room. As she flicked through the channels, she heard footsteps in the hallway.

“Is that you, mom?” There was no response. “Mom?” she called out again, but there was no answer.

Sighing, she got up and opened her bedroom door. Looking left and right, there was nobody around. “Mom?” Bertha didn’t respond. “Guess I must be hearing things.”

Laying back down on the bed, she picked up the remote.

Jessica rubbed her arms, now feeling cold. She felt a sudden chill in the room. She glanced at the window. It was closed and locked.

“Why is it so cold?”

As she stood up to get a warmer sweater, Jessica stopped. The girl swallowed hard and her heart thundered as her chair beside the door moved two inches...by itself.

“O...kay. That’s weird.” Approaching the chair cautiously, she pushed it back.

Opening the wardrobe door, she rummaged through all her sweaters. Jessica paused, hearing the wooden chair creak. Again her heart beat faster. Slowly, she half-closed the wardrobe door to take a look, even though every fiber in her being said not to. Shutting her eyes, the girl rattled off a quick prayer.

Turning around to face the chair, Jessica opened her eyes. She screamed as it now leaned forward, its two back legs high in the air. Tears threatened to drown her eyes as she jumped on the bed. Something dragged the chair across the room, stopping at the foot of her bed. It now fell back, resting on its four legs again.

Seizing her chance, Jessica bolted for the door. Just as she was about to make her exit, an invisible force slammed it shut. Jessica pulled at the handle, trying hard to open it.

“Come on, come on,” she said with a shaky breath, tears continuing to stream down her face. “Open, damn it!” When that didn’t work, Jessica banged on the door in desperation. “Mom, mom. Help!”

Her banging came to an abrupt halt when someone grabbed her ponytail, yanking it hard, pulling her to the ground. She cried out in pain as her back hit the ground hard. Ice cold fingers pulled up her sweater and t-shirt. Now they stroked and caressed her stomach.

“No, please, no!” The malevolent force ignored her pleas, continuing to crawl down towards her underwear.

Jessica wriggled and flailed her arms about to break free. Once more, she felt the acrid stench of a hot breath against her left ear.

“Get away from me, you sick bastard!”

She almost leaped off the floor when she heard his menacing Southern drawl, “You want me to leave you alone? Then forget about the well.” His ice-cold fingers no longer tugged at the waistband of her pajama bottoms.

The tight grip on her ponytail was gone. She waited a few seconds to see if Caleb had gone too. When the eerie icy atmosphere had lifted, she scrambled to her feet and ran to the bathroom. 

About the Author:

Since 2004, Aidan Lucid’s work has been published in national and international magazines, as well as various poetry anthologies. For a period of nine months in 2007, he was a film reviewer for the award-winning Irish newspaper, The Kerryman. From 2009 to 2017, Aidan was an assistant editor for Bewildering Stories e-zine. Lucid began critiquing novels and short stories in 2018 and continues to do so. In October 2019, his debut YA fantasy novel, The Lost Son, was released.  

www.aidanlucidauthor.com

https://twitter.com/thezargothian

https://www.instagram.com/zargothianauthor/




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Tuesday, March 23, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: SECRETS OF THE MERMAID by CATHERINE STINE

 


 


Secrets of the Mermaid
The Keepers of Knowledge
Book Six
Catherine Stine

Genre: Urban Fantasy Romance
Publisher: Konjur Road Press
Date of Publication: March 15, 2021
ASIN: B08QJSB14G
Number of pages: 221
Word Count: 50k
Cover Artist: Dark Unicorn Designs

Book Description:

Meet Indigo Rain, a beautiful but lonely mermaid. Regretful of a dark past, she has vowed to remain alone and research ancient merfolk tribes. When she unearths a seabed burial site that even she cannot identify, she shares this with a High Council merfolk historian. But she keeps one shocking secret to herself.

Bay Finley is the flirty, dashing Royal merfolk Keeper assigned to teach Indigo on Pyreshore, a glamoured city of supernaturals tasked with keeping invaluable knowledge alive. Indigo thinks Bay is a know-it-all. She also thinks he’s dangerously handsome. He’s engaged to Abigail Torrent, a Royal, unlike Indigo, but he’s spending time with Indigo in the lab…

Indigo has three quests: Uncover the mystery of the burial tablet, resist falling in love, and never, ever reveal her biggest secret, even to the Keepers.

Some secrets heal, some kill. Other secrets change life as we know it.

10 books, 10 authors, 10 keepers, 1 shared world. Read in any order!



Excerpt: 
They plunged downward. Indigo felt the transformative rush as her legs changed to a single tailfin, and her hips and below became a sheen of golden scales. She breathed in water and wriggled her way downward. As she did, she stole peeks at Bay. His merman patterns, like ruddy tribal tattoos, emerged along his jawline, down his muscled arms and on both sides of his lean torso. His scales, a rusty gold, matched the patterns on his skin, and glittered brightly against the darker waters like the sea-glass she so loved. His chest and abs seemed to swell and flex at the same time with the strength of a Poseidon, the grace of a marathon swimmer, the glory of a merman Royal in his prime. She forced herself to look away, and to concentrate on seeking out the tablets, whether they were the nano-synth ones, more of the type in that hidden burial chamber, or another type of artifact altogether.
They swam a good way around the outer perimeter, and found nothing of note except for a shattered belt-pack, most likely from the mining accident. She left it there. A little farther on Bay found a cracked human skull. Indigo was sure this was also from a miner, fatally injured in the blast.
She and Bay dug a plot and buried the thing, after she argued that it would be a dishonor to the human dead to ferry it to Pyreshore. “I witnessed that accident,” she explained to him. “There’s nothing more to learn from a human miner’s cracked skull. We’re here for the merfolk.”
He agreed. Halfway around the next perimeter, Bay found another synth plaque, half buried in a whorl of sand and shattered shells. He gingerly slid it in his pack. They gave each other the thumbs up and carried on. For another hour, they worked their way around the crest until they reached the chasm itself. The sight made Indigo shudder. It wasn’t that there was anything visually horrific about the opening, with its piles of sand mixed with shell and coral shards. It was its energy—pulling them toward it as if subterranean demons were sucking them in, famished enough to gulp them down whole. As if this gaping wound was the dark force of what humans called Hell—an eternal, cursed tunnel lined with sticky, deadly evil. 
Bay tread water near its edge. Trepidation was etched on his face. “What if… we dove down and explored this damn hellhole together?”
So he connected it with hell too. He must feel the force, luring them both in. “You sure, Bay? Only a week ago I hauled you up, half dead, from this site. You were hooked up to all kinds of wires in the hospital, remember?”
“I’ll never forget.” Their eyes met in a question, followed by a resolve.
Something else was on Indigo’s mind. She realized, as she undulated closer to the chasm, that she had harbored her own plans to head back as soon as she gathered the courage, to explore the hidden alcove inside the wall of the burial chamber where she’d found the orb.
The orb… what was it exactly? Why did it have its own tiny room? Why was the wall there like a mollusk that grew and shrank? How was it connected to the supposed merfolk coffins? Or was it pure coincidence they existed side by side? She didn’t want to lie to Bay anymore. But she wasn’t ready to spill her guts about the orb’s existence with him either. There were still too many questions.
“So, are we doing this?” He nodded toward the abyss.
“Yeah, we’re doing this. But of one of us gets badly mauled, or worse, the other will haul both of our tailfins up and out of there. And if you see the phantom fish or hear screams in languages you don’t understand you’ll tell me. You won’t just chalk it up to volcanic pressure. Agree?”
“Okay, sure. I’ll keep an open mind. Let’s head down together. As allies.” With this, he held out his hand. 
She took it. His palm gripping hers was electric, and they thundered down in a flurry of bubbles.

About the Author:

Catherine Stine is a USA Today bestselling author of paranormal, urban and historical fantasy with romance. Witch of the Wild Beasts won a second prize in the Romance Writers of America’s Sheila Contest. Other novels have earned Indie Notable awards and New York Public Library Best Books for Teens. She lives in New York State and grew up in Philadelphia. Before writing novels, she was a painter and fabric designer. She’s a visual author when it comes to scenes, and sees writing as painting with words. She loves edgy thrills, perhaps because her dad read Edgar Allen Poe tales to her as a child. Catherine loves spending time with her beagle Benny, writing about supernatural creatures, gardening and meeting readers at book fests.

Website: http://catherinestine.com/wp/

TikTok: @catherinestine7

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kitsy84557/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kitsy84557

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/catherine-stine

Subscribe to Catherine’s Newsletter: 

https://catherinestine.com/wp/get-the-newsletter-contact-me/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1018139.Catherine_Stine

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Catherine-Stine/e/B001H9TXJC

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorcatherinestine/




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Tuesday, March 16, 2021

INTERVIEW WITH ELLEN MINT (CLAW: COVEN OF DESIRE)

 


Claw
Coven of Desire 
Book One
Ellen Mint

Genre: Reverse Harem, Paranormal
Publisher: Totally Bound
Date of Publication: March 16th
ISBN: 978-1-83943-489-1
ASIN: 
Number of pages: 308
Word Count: 76,000
Cover Artist: Erin Dameron-Hill

Tagline: He’s not your typical werewolf-next-door.

Book Description: 

Layla didn’t count on a sex demon appearing in her living room. Nor did she expect to find she’s a witch, tasked with protecting the mortal realm. And now her friend, fellow nursing student and impossible crush could be a potential killer? 

She’s silently lusted after Cal for a year, knowing a guy that hot, sweet, and kind wouldn’t look twice at her. All their flirting was innocent and went nowhere, until Ink—the incubus bound to her—ran into her life and bed. Next thing she knows, Cal’s growling at her while Ink flirts, and women are being ripped apart by wild animals. Couldn’t the murder monster mystery wait until after finals?

She wanted to be a nurse, not a paranormal investigator, but Layla has no choice. Apparently only witches can stop these creatures that she didn’t even know existed a month ago. But the deeper she digs, the more it looks like Cal’s deep in the middle of it all. How can she save her friend from the claws of a cult, keep her sex-craved demon happy and find a way to let both into her heart or bed?

Amazon     BN     Kobo     Apple 

Bookbub     Goodreads

Everyone who buys a copy of Claw at First for Romance will receive the short story Retail Hell free at First For Romance. 

Set between the events of Ink and Claw in the Coven of Desire series, Layla's workday from hell is interrupted by her personal sex demon. 

Get it HERE: https://www.firstforromance.com/book/claw


Excerpt:

“Please,” I whispered, praying there was a single note of compassion remaining inside the animal.

The icy gaze darted behind me. “You almost fell,” he said, drawing me to find the stack of crates I’d nearly crashed onto.

I wished that reassured me, that I wasn’t still staring deep into the eyes of a potential crazed animal, but he didn’t release his hold on my face. Cal raised his other hand, the fingers extended as if he expected claws to be on them. The palm drifted closer, my heart thundering for fear of where it was heading. To pierce my ribcage? Pry out my heart? Rip off an arm?

When it settled on my hip, I felt a macabre sense of disappointment. Until Calvin, always sweet but distant Calvin, brushed the full pad of his palm over my ass. A deep rumble rolled from his chest, which kept rising higher.

“Let me leave,” I whispered.

That killed his growl, his head shooting up and the eyes opening in surprise. But as he circled his lips with his tongue—which I’d never noticed was so long before—Calvin flexed his hold on me.

Oh god! I stumbled backward, my hands flying to find anything to grab. One latched on to his forearm, the arm with the fingers attached to my face. I could dig my own claws in, see if that shook him off.

But I’d found his den, sussed out his secret. No chance he’d let me walk away now.

“Ah!” I gasped, my back striking the wall. A picture frame jabbed into me, but I wasn’t in a position to complain. Cal pressed closer, first almost shoving his chest into mine, then his hips. His hand remained clamped over my chin. I kept picturing it sliding down to my throat to cut off my air. But he didn’t move it even while leaning nearer until he grazed the edge of my jaw with his teeth.

Shit. My legs wouldn’t stop trembling, my body wanting to fall to the ground and scamper away. But not all of it. Even as I hung on to his arm, my fingers toyed with the hard muscle clinging to me. With every swipe of his hips, the undeniable surge in his pants grew.

“Layla.” Calvin whispered my name as though he recognized me from across the street. I turned to him and he plunged his famished mouth over mine. Inescapable heat pulsed through me, Cal’s lips a hard snarl aching to own me. But the longer he kissed me, the softer they became. Almost tender and gentle, he slipped his tongue into my mouth. I answered back with mine. My body hummed with anticipation, my mind pleading for more. For me to taste all of him.

Loss. It flooded my senses and I opened my eyes to watch Calvin break off the kiss. His hand slipped from my face, though the other remained cradling my ass. Slowly, he licked his lips, causing a smile to twist across them. But he shook it off and said in a ragged voice, “You can go.”

“What?” I lost all focus, my head whipping to the side to see he’d kissed me right next to the door. He’d brought me to the door.

Calvin pulled in a slow breath and his smile turned winsome. “You asked to leave.”

Yes. I needed to get out. He could be a murderer. Except he’d been here that night…literally chained up. He’d chained himself up? To keep others safe? My heart fluttered at the idea and Calvin slunk back. He swiped at his neck like it was tough for him to breathe after our kiss. It tugged the sweater down, revealing a handful of blond chest hair begging to be freed.

He’s a werewolf.

Well, nobody’s perfect.

I fisted his hair, tugging his lips to mine while flattening my body against his. Cal grabbed on to my shirt and lifted it. But I wouldn’t stop kissing him, my lips craving his, my hands needing to run the length of his terrain. I worked under his sweater and swept my palm up his stomach. Abs, a tuft of soft hair, and…

Cal grabbed my arms by the wrists and raised them above my head. Our kiss broke, leaving me staring across the narrow gap into his burning ice eyes. He pulled in a breath, straining the knit weave of his sweater across his flexing muscles.

Locking my wrists together in one palm, he yanked my shirt up to my elbows. Only that blur of cotton broke our stare. Electricity crackled in the space between us. I watched Cal pull in air in anticipation of a marathon.

He unleashed my wrists, letting them drop to my sides as my shirt flew into the circular staircase. The energy was building, every micro-shift in my body zapping a strike from me to him, or vice versa. I felt them not as pain, but a shiver across my skin that I’d never known before.

“Gonna show me the goods, wolfman?” I asked, placing a hand to my hip.

 

About the Author:

Ellen Mint adores the adorkable heroes who charm with their shy smiles and heroines that pack a punch. She has a needy black lab named after Granny Weatherwax from Discworld. Sadly, her dog is more of a Magrat.

When she’s not writing imposing incubi or saucy aliens, she does silly things like make a tiny library full of her books. Her background is in genetics and she married a food scientist so the two of them nerd out over things like gut bacteria. She also loves gaming, particularly some of the bigger RPG titles. If you want to get her talking for hours, just bring up Dragon Age.

Website: https://ellenmint.blog/

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/ellen-mint

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/ellenmint      

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellenmintromance

Newsletter Signup: https://mailchi.mp/b50df9613d8f/ellenmint

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17700737.Ellen_Mint

Reader Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sinamints

Instagram: https://instagram.com/Ellen_Mint_Author



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Thursday, March 11, 2021

THE GRIMM CASES COLLECTION BY LYLA OWEDS

 




Mu 
The Grimm Cases Collection
Part One
Lyla Oweds

Genre: Young Adult/New Adult Fantasy
Date of Publication: August 15, 2019
ASIN: B07SZ4FTD9
Number of pages: 759
Word Count: 269k
Cover Artist: Crimson Phoenix Creations

Book Description:

The things I see aren’t for the faint of heart. 

And I am no longer willing to ignore them. Not even when my family, and my best friend, tell me to keep quiet about what’s happening. They say people will think I’m crazy. 

Maybe I am. 

But the spirit haunting my professor’s house is definitely trying to tell me something, and I’m the only one who can see it. 

The one person who can help me is my best friend's brother. But I don’t know if I can trust him or his friends. Or if I can step outside the protective bubble I’ve built around myself. 

At this point it’s a toss-up: the ghosts will kill me or my panic attacks will. 

Either way, I figure I’m going to die.

This Omnibus contains books 1-3, the first novella, and bonus chapters for The Grimm Cases

Amazon

Excerpt:

I stopped walking entirely—I certainly couldn’t show up at Damen’s with this interloper in tow. “I’m seriously fine.” I tried to reassure him in my nicest voice. To show no fear. “You don’t need to bother with me. Besides, I don’t even know who you are.”

“It’s not a bother at all.” He flashed another blinding smile. “And I guess I should introduce myself. It’s a good thing to be wary of strangers. My name is Titus Ducharme. You might have heard of me; I own Jinshu Security.”

Never heard of it. I pursed my lips, listening to him continue on. If anything, I was even more suspicious now. I highly doubted that this man was the owner of anything resembling a respectable corporation. He was far too young and too wild.

Titus—if that was his real name—didn’t seem to notice. “I’m perfectly legit. You can ask my assistant. But I can’t tell you how happy it makes me when I see a young woman asking questions. You have a good head on your shoulders, it would be remiss of me to not see you to your destination.”

I raised a brow skeptically, unable to come up with a response. He thought I was smart because I asked a question? It almost sounded as though he was making fun of me.

“Let me take a guess and say that you are headed…” He glanced up and pointed in the direction that I had been walking when he pulled up. “…that way. What a coincidence! I’m going that way as well, so this works perfectly. I’ll escort you.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. He was being so stubborn. It was time to take some action.

He had at least a foot-and-a-half on me and over a hundred pounds of muscle. I had no chance in hand-to-hand combat. There was only one thing for a woman like me to do in this situation.

Yet, despite my fear, I felt guilty. “Titus—”

He grinned warmly as I said his name, as if he loved hearing the sound. The action made me feel even worse for what I was about to do.

I’d give him one more chance.

“I’m seriously fine.” I leveled my most severe glare in his direction, in case he was just a persistent dude with no clue. “You can leave now, please.”

He sighed as he rubbed the back of his head, clearly uncomfortable. “I don’t think that you understand. These streets…I can’t just leave you here alone. I really should—”

Titus didn’t see it coming. The second he refused to leave, I pulled out the weapon and aimed the pepper spray right at his eyes.

About the Author:

Lyla Oweds is an Amazon bestselling paranormal romance and urban fantasy author who resides in the beautiful Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania. She grew up near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and is a native of Baltimore, Maryland, and has a deep appreciation for the paranormal, hauntings, and Edgar Allan Poe. As such, she loves all things fantasy, mystery, crime, and horror.

When not reading, writing, or working as a web programmer, Lyla can be found doing adult-y things such as being a mom to small children, cleaning, and gardening. She also frequently enjoys makeup videos, massages, wine, and coffee.

Website: https://lylaoweds.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lylaoweds

 





Thursday, March 4, 2021

SPOTLIGHT: SHIFTING SILENCE by LAURA BICKLE

 


Shifting Silence 
Mane Shift
Book One
Laura Bickle 

Genre: Urban Fantasy, Fantasy

ASIN: B08X51X1RQ

Publisher: Syrenka Publishing LLC

Publication Date: February 21, 2021

Book Description:

This witch takes in strays. Stray animals, not stray ex-boyfriends, magical cultists, or shifters.

At least, that used to be the rule…

Luna Summerwood has always taken in strays. As a witch who runs a veterinary clinic, she’s healed creatures that fly, swim, and crawl. She’s not the most powerful Summerwood witch; her only magic is the ability to communicate with animals. But when an exotic maned wolf is brought to her in the dead of night, Luna is plunged into the shadowy underground world of shifter trafficking.

With the help of her ex-boyfriend—who also happens to be a local deputy and someone who pushes all her buttons—she investigates a series of occult crimesinvolving missing farm animals. After her ex is nearly killed, Luna discovers thatthe Casimir, a cult of magical collectors, plans to steal the maned wolf.

This beautiful maned wolf is more than he seems—he’s a shapeshifting man named Renan.He was once captured by the Casimir and forced to do their dark bidding. Luna is his last chance at finding sanctuary…and perhaps love.

But the Casimir want more than just Renan. Centuries ago, the Summerwoods warred with the Casimir. Now, these sorcerers will stop at nothing to possess the Summerwood land and theburied magic of the witches themselves.

Amazon


Excerpt 1

            My skin was crawling. That guy was one of the Casimir sorcerers…I had to warn Sandy and her deputies. I jogged up the gravel driveway, past the mailbox, to the parked sheriff’s car. Something was weird about the car. The windows were rolled up, and water leaked in a stream from beneath the car, too much to be condensation from air conditioning.

            “Hey,” I said, knocking on the dirty passenger side window, trying to get the attention of the deputy who sat there, staring through his sunglasses at his phone.

            But he didn’t move.

            It took me a second to realize that the car was full of water.

            Dread pooling in my belly, I yanked open the car door. Water splashed all over my legs, nearly knocking me over. The whole interior of the car reeked of magic. I staggered back to the car to touch the guy’s neck.

            I couldn’t feel a pulse. He was dead.

            Tires squealed on gravel. Down the road, the Jeep swerved, as if there were a fight going on inside.

            I reached into the deputy’s gun belt and yanked out his gun. I had no idea how well it would work after being underwater, but I needed something to protect myself. I slammed my fingers to the radio, but it had shorted out.

            I looked up again to see a long-legged canine loping down the road, toward the Jeep. I recognized Renan in the shape of a maned wolf. Running as fast as he could, ears pinned back, he was gaining on the Jeep.

            I ran down the road. I couldn’t let Voss escape now. He knew where I lived, and he would surely see Renan alive now. If he told the rest of the Casimir, we were dead.

            The Jeep swerved and landed in the ditch, rolling onto its side in about two feet of standing water. Renan jumped onto the Jeep’s passenger door and growled, the hair standing up on his back.

            I aimed the gun at the Jeep and advanced slowly. “Come out with your hands up!” I ordered, trying to think of what Dalton would say.

            A thumping sound echoed inside the Jeep, sounding like a hammer. Something heavy struck the windshield, and the glass broke into a spiderweb of pieces before the busted sheet of safety glass was shoved out onto the hood.

            “Oh, hell,” I whispered as a crocodile crawled out over the hood of the Jeep.       

            “Freeze!” I shouted, staring over the dead deputy’s gun.

            But the crocodile glared at me toothily. With shocking speed for such a chunky animal, it scrambled up the hood toward me.

            I pulled the trigger.

            Nothing happened.

            “Damn it.”

            Renan jumped on the crocodile’s back, his teeth scrambling for purchase on the thick reptilian hide. The crocodile swept back and forth, shaking its head and tail, trying to dislodge the maned wolf. The scuffle pushed them off the Jeep and drew them into the mud of the ditch.

            As furious as he fought, I knew that Renan was no match for the crocodile. I had to find a way to help. I dove at the passenger door of the Jeep. I ripped it open and yelled for the ranger within.

            But he was going to be of no help. The interior of the Jeep was splashed with blood, and Ranger Perkins seemed to be doing his best to hold his guts in with both hands.

            “Your gun,” I gasped, and lunged for his belt.

            “What the hell is happening?” he murmured weakly. “You gotta get away. You gotta—"

            I scrambled through the ruined windshield, gun aimed before me. Renan was holding on to the crocodile’s neck for dear life, while the croc started a barrel roll in the narrow ditch. Dirty water splashed all around them, and I had a hard time sighting the gun in on my target without risking hitting Renan.

            I slid down the hood of the Jeep and landed in the ditch, water up to my knees. The croc’s black eye emerged, and its jaws snapped toward me. I aimed at the croc’s head and pulled the trigger not once, but twice, three times…

            The crocodile flopped back into the water. Renan jumped to the bank panting, and the croc grew still as the roar of the gunfire receded.

            Shaking, I lowered the gun.

            “Will that do it?” I whispered. “Will that kill him, or will he heal?”          

            Renan walked toward me. As he moved, I heard the crunch of his bones reorganizing, limbs lengthening. I stared in fascination, watching that red fur ripple over him and fade, twisting into the shape of a man.

            “I think he’s dead. And there’s no healing the dead,” Renan said.


About the Author:

Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs and sometimes reads them to her cats. Her books have earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus. Laura’s work has also 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. The latest updates on her work can be found at authorlaurabickle.com.

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