Keeper of Spirits
Page 18
A few laughs from the table. “Now, I’m going to carve this bird and hopefully I won’t screw that up, because this is my first time. You guys can go ahead and start serving your plates, it might take me a little while.”
He’d just made the first cut when a ding dong, echoed through the house.
Every single person at the table stopped talking and glanced at each other with confused expressions. He knew why. No one ever rang the doorbell. Half the time they forgot they even had a doorbell.
He grabbed a napkin and wiped his hands. “I’ll get it.”
Ding dong.
He left the table and crossed into the living room. He heard the scooting of chairs and pounding of feet as everyone followed him so that they could watch. He ran his hand over the gun at his hip, hoping that no one was on the other side that he had to use it on.
Finally, he twisted the knob and pulled the door open. There, on the other side, was a beautiful woman with long dark curls cascading down her back. She was dressed in a long, teal green skirt and a form-fitting, long sleeve black shirt. She had huge teal stones dangling from her ears that went perfectly with her dark skin.
“Emily?” He breathed the words, not believing that she was really there.
“Gregory.” She nodded. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
He shook his head. “Why … how … why are you here? Where did you go after we last saw you in Napa? We were so worried.”
She tilted her head up and her big brown eyes met his. “I have foreseen that I am supposed to be here. You and the others, you need my help and I am a part of your future.”
He couldn’t help it, his lips parted and his mouth fell open. “You what?”
She smiled. “You heard me.”
“Yeah. Yes, I did.” He turned to the side. “Please come in.”
She lifted the suitcase at her feet that he hadn’t even seen and crossed into the house. “Thank you.”
“Guys!” He called out in a loud voice. “We’re going to need another plate.” He knew they had seen the whole thing and Emily probably saw them hanging out behind him, but he hollered anyway.
“Well Emily, you’re just in time for dinner.” He gestured the way she should go.
“Thank you.” Once again she looked up at him. “I hope I’m not intruding too much. There was no better way to tell you than to just come here and tell you. After I had the vision, I had to come.”
Though he was a bit skeptical, he didn’t say so. “You’re always welcome here. We were wondering what happened to you.”
She narrowed her eyes as they strode into the dining room. “I think you should be more worried about what will happen to you.” And then, she turned to the group at the table and smiled. “Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.”
Excerpt from Immortal Ties
CHAPTER ONE
MOLLY
My heart pounded so loudly it echoed in my ears.
My footsteps fell hard on the earth beneath me as I ran. I could feel the evil reaching out for me, gaining on me. Fallen branches snapped under the pressure of my bare feet, piercing pain shooting through me each time. Leaves crunched and scattered around me as I mentally pushed myself to go faster. Only the light of the moon filtering through the trees illuminated my way through the thick woods. Sweat poured off of my face and blurred my vision, making what was already difficult to see nearly impossible.
I felt the soft fabric of my pajama pants catch on something, probably a tree branch, and tear as I kept moving. I couldn’t stop. No matter what, I had to keep moving.
Then it happened.
I felt the dip in the moist earth beneath me and suddenly my body was falling in what felt like slow motion. My knees hit the ground first, slamming into the dirt and leaves so hard that a jarring pain ripped through my body and a scream escaped my lips. I flailed my arms, desperately searching for something to catch my fall.
The next thing I knew, I lay sprawled on the forest floor. The side of my nose stung and I realized that the skin had been scratched open. The coppery taste of a renegade drop of blood confirmed that I had, indeed, obtained a cut. I had only taken a second to recover before trying to push myself up
However, that was too long.
A laugh echoed through the night. A dark, evil laugh that haunted every moment of my twenty nine years. My fingers dug into the dirt as I tried to force my exhausted body upward.
Then, ice cold fingers suddenly wrapped around my ankle. The prickles burned into my skin, freezing the flesh beneath and began to spread up my calves. I screamed again, trying to pull my legs from the frigid grasp that held me. Though my mouth opened, nothing sounded. It was as if I was on mute. The numbing cold crawled upward to my knees, and then my thighs.
There was no one to hear me anyway.
I continued to try and push myself up. Strands of my matted red hair fell down in front of my face, somewhat restricting my vision. I didn’t want to see what was going to happen anyway. The urge to give up began to tug at my will to survive.
Suddenly, the earth beneath me transformed, what was once firm and moist, was now slippery and slimy … and moved.
I twisted to the side and found my voice again as another scream erupted from so deep inside me that I had no idea how my body could produce such a sound. My head whipped back and I threw my hands out as I rolled fully onto my back in the pit of snakes that had appeared from nowhere.
My legs were completely numb, as if frostbite had rotted them away. I lay there on my back, unable to move as the snakes began to slither over my arms, into my hair and onto my face. In only seconds, they were even covering my chest and crawling beneath my shirt. Their reptile skin a sickening contrast to feel against my own warm flesh.
It was now fear that paralyzed me, not the cold that had numbed my legs into submission.
I could hear the laughter of the creature, mocking and eerily enjoying what was happening to me. It took every ounce I had, but I lifted my head and looked up, trying to see the monster who terrorized me night after night, but all I could see was a shadow and glowing, yellow eyes.
***
My eyes snapped open and I found myself screeching and writhing around on my sheets that were drenched in sweat and tears.
Rusty was on my bed, barking like crazy. But, not at me. He was turned away from me as if he were guarding me. My screaming ceased as I realized where I was and I stilled. I knew I was safe now, but that didn’t take away the lingering fear and pain. I simply turned to the side and brought my knees to my chest, curling up into a ball, and sobbed. The tears didn’t need to well, they were already spilling over before I even opened my eyes.
It was never going to end … never.
Rusty’s barking had silenced and my beloved golden retriever inched forward and began licking the moisture off my cheeks. “Stop,” I whispered, pushing him away from my face. He did stop with the doggie kisses, but lay down with his head on my side. I patted the soft fur on his head as if to say, ‘I love you too.’ You would think that he would be used to seeing me like this by now and simply ignore it.
All my life I had been plagued by these nightmares. Every. Damn. Night. I couldn’t even find rest in the day time. If I fell into a deep enough sleep, the horrid dreams came. Ever since I can remember I had only been able to manage non-REM sleep and sometimes stage one. If I hit stage two, the nightmares took over.
I finished crying and lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling, like I did every night, and wondering how this happened to me. My uncle had the nightmares, too. He died when I was six months old, but my mother told me that was it was almost exactly the same as what I endured, and mine began shortly after he passed.
When I was young, mom took me to every specialist known to man, from sleep studies, to therapists, to neurosurgeons, and they all found nothing. I was completely normal. No one could find anything that would cause the disruption of sleep.
The icy cold from the nightmare wouldn’t go away. I could feel it d
own to the bone throughout my entire body. The sweat and chilly, autumn nights may have also had something to do with that. Nevertheless, I forced myself to roll off the bed and staggered into the bathroom.
I peeled off my pajamas and stepped into the shower where I let the water rain down onto me and warm my muscles once again. For the longest time I just stood there trying not to think about how tired I was and how the dreams … nightmares, were always different, but the shadow was the common factor in all of them.
When I felt the water start to lose some of its heat, I quickly washed my hair and then lathered up my body with soap so that I could scrub off the sweat. The shower finally went cold just as I was giving my skin a final rinse. I turned off the spray and stepped out, wrapping myself in a towel, and then put on a new set of pajamas and went downstairs to make a pot of coffee.
While the coffee brewed, I turned on all of my downstairs lights and rummaged around for a snack. My fridge had pretty much nothing in it, mostly a bunch of condiments and a carton of milk. Since it was only me I had to shop for, I usually ate at the bar & grill so I didn’t have to cook anything.
I snagged the milk and pulled a box of cheerios out of the cupboard. The coffee was almost ready so I filled a mug and added hazelnut creamer, then sat down at the small round kitchen table. Rusty had followed me downstairs and lay quietly at my feet.
This was a nightly occasion, so my table was stacked with provisions. It held a romance novel I was in the middle of reading, a sketch pad, some colored pencils and my laptop. This time though, my eyes were drawn to the local newspaper that I’d dropped there on my way in from work the day before.
I shoved a huge spoon full of cereal into my mouth and chewed as I pulled the paper toward me. The front page was plastered with the coverage of preparation for the latest Saint’s Grove festivity. The next night there was supposed to be an extremely rare astronomical event, a total lunar eclipse and supposedly, the alignment of six planets.
With a sigh, I pushed the paper away and reached for my laptop. Of course I was excited about the Event, but the amount of people that were going to come out and see it was a little out of my league. I wasn’t a very social person, even though my job sort of required it. Most everyone who came into What in Carnation, was someone I knew.
Opening my laptop, I booted it up and sipped at my coffee while I waited. As soon as it was completely ready, I pulled up my word processing program and found my latest document. Before digging into the writing, I re-read a few of the passages that I’d written the night before.
This was my ultimate secret. My alter ego that no one would ever know was actually Molly McMillan.
Lola Whispers, author of erotic romance.
Writing wasn’t my day job, but the flower shop didn’t bring in that much money and I certainly had the time since I only managed a few hours of sleep regularly. Lola had come into existence because I needed a diversion to keep my mind occupied and off the scary memories of what happened in my nightmares. I began writing about love and romance because it was the complete opposite of what I experienced every time I closed my eyes. By the time the eBook boom and self-publishing hit, I already had seven full novels that were up and ready to publish. So, I took the plunge.
After a little while I tried my hand at some of the juicier stuff and people really liked it; that was when my books really took off. It actually amazed me how many people enjoyed reading the stuff I wrote. Heck sometimes it even embarrassed me.
In any case, I ran the shop during the day and love every minute of it. Because I dealt with horror and fear every single night, I filled my days with beauty. In the shop, the scent of flowers and earth surrounded me and I could somehow feel more alive. Flowers and the shop were my passion, the books were merely a hobby.
With Rusty at my feet, I worked on my latest book, the sequel to, A Knights Tail, until the sky began to lighten and I knew it was time to start getting ready for work.
Other Books by Jennifer Malone Wright
Keeper vs. Reaper (Graveyard Guardians #1)(Always free)
Keeper of the Peace (Graveyard Guardians #2)
Keeper Under Fire (Graveyard Guardians #3)
BearyTales
Savior (A Higher Collective Novel)
Once Upon a Zombie Apocalypse – Jade (Always free)
Once Upon a Zombie Apocalypse: Episode 2
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter Part 1 (Always free)
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 2
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter Part 3
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 4
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 5
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: Part 6
The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter: The Complete Collection
(All six parts a total of 72,000 words)
The Arcadia Falls Chronicles is The Vampire Hunter’s Daughter story continued
Love & War (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 1)
Taking Talon (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 2)
Vampire Apocalypse (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 3)
Blood Warrior (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 4)
Winds of Fire (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 5)
Innocence and Evil (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 6)
Origins and Impulse (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 7)
Mortals and Magic (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 8)
Sound of Sirens (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 9)
Heart of the Hurricane (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles 10)
Broken Souls (Runes Universe)
About the Author
Jennifer Malone Wright resides in the beautiful mountains of northern Idaho with her husband and five children where she practices preparing for the zombie apocalypse. Just kidding!
But seriously, between the craziness of taking care of her children, Jennifer has little time left for herself. The time she does have left, usually leading far into the night, is spent working on her beloved fiction or chatting with her equally crazy friends.
Jennifer also loves coffee, has a passionate affair with red bull, wishes the sushi were better where she lives and dances while she cleans.
Please visit Jennifer’s website at
www.jennifermalonewright.com
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