THE WILLOW AND THE STONE
"The Willow and the Stone by Tamara Jock is a wonderfully three-dimensional read. The writing is crisp and riveting, the plot sometimes shocking, often heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful...Ms. Jock's compassionate and evocative writing produces a story that will linger on in your memory long after you've turned the last page." -Merrylee, Manic Readers review
On a future Earth overcome by predatory
extraterrestrials, an unlikely pair of women hold the key to mankind’s
salvation.
Four years ago, insectile aliens arrived on Earth in
great pyramid ships. Now mankind is
reduced to a few pockets of survivors, skulking in the shadows to elude the
creatures that rule the planet. Among
those survivors are Carli Dixon and Renee Johnson, an ill-matched pair thrown
together through circumstance.
Battling their extraterrestrial enemy and the
betrayal of their own kind, Carli and Renee struggle against impossible odds to
find safety. Rescuing each other from
certain death cements their friendship.
But to survive and save others like themselves, they must risk
everything … including each other.
Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Omnilit, and in print.
Excerpt:
Renee slapped her hand over her companion’s mouth. The brunette manhandled the smaller woman into the shadows beneath the stone bridge they‘d just emerged from. Carli didn’t struggle against Renee’s grip, but she squealed a muffled cry of protest into the stagnant West Virginia night air.
"Sssssshh!" Renee hissed, her grip tightening. "Aliens!"
Carli froze against her for an instant before breaking free. She slammed herself against the inside of the arch to merge with the blackest of shadows. Renee crowded her, also sliding into the dubious cover of darkness. The bridge, more picturesque than a bastion of protection, was small with wooden beams buttressing the stones above. A perfect spot for vacationing tourists to pose on for pictures to bore their co-workers with, but a ridiculous spot to depend on for one’s life.
Two monstrous creatures glided into view, their elongated insectoid figures silhouetted in the bright moonlight. They stalked up to the bridge that spanned the dry, dusty creek bed and joined the women in the darkness. Carli and Renee melted behind a support beam.
Trapped, Carli's frantic mind whispered. The monsters had them for sure this time. She squeezed her eyes shut but couldn't block out the aliens' cricket speech. They chirped and chittered, grating against her ears. She wished she could be struck deaf. Sweat tickled its way down her spine.
Muscular Renee, who couldn't begin to approach the power of the spindly aliens, tensed beside her. The creatures came abreast of the hidden women, chirping ear-bleeding conversation right in front of them. Carli tried to shrink further back, mashing her backside into the unyielding, unsympathetic stone. Renee crushed against her.
A pebble slid from under Carli's foot and clinked in protest as it dislodged and rolled down the slope. Her mouth flew open to scream; surely the monsters heard the rock crash down. No whistle of sound escaped her locked, straining throat, but her heart was a bass drum of thunder booming through the night.
Her eyes screwed shut against the sight of the looming predators, Carli waited for the bristle-haired mantis arms of an alien to embrace her. She waited for its needle proboscis to slide into her flesh and secrete its paralyzing poison. She waited to sag helpless in the grip of the monster while it sipped the life from her veins. She waited to die a slow, fading death. Her heart pounded louder than ever, as if to beat as hard and fast as it could in its few remaining minutes.
The chittering aliens, intent on their conversation, stalked past. Disbelieving, Carli’s eyes flew open, and she watched them pass from under the bridge. Motes of moon-glittering dust danced in the wake of the monsters’ long, tapered legs.
She released the breath she'd been holding in a rush and sucked it in again as one alien swiveled its head around. It looked back at the bridge that hid the two women.
Carli's stomach lurched at the pale orb of the creature's face glowing in the moonlight. Wispy tufts of hair sprang in sparse bunches from its bullet-shaped head. The proboscis writhed like a blind worm where a nose and mouth would have been on a human. Its grayish flesh seemed stretched too tight over its skull; there were no wrinkles, not even creases on its face.
Its eyes shocked her the most; eyes cold in intent, but horribly human in appearance, almond shaped and ringed with black lashes.
The creatures’ naked torsos were long and smooth without benefit of hair, muscle tone, or even genitalia. Carli had no idea if skin or a harder shell covered their bones; happily she’d never been in contact with one. Odds were she’d someday lose that joy.
The searching alien's too-human eyes slid over the women without alerting. Carli's body sagged as the creature turned away and stalked on with its companion.
The women huddled under the bridge listening to the monsters' conversation die away and smelling the sour tang of their own sweat. Carli shuddered violently, knowing that Renee could feel it, and didn’t care. Probably Renee was shaking too; this had been their closest call yet.
Frogs broke into chorus from their shelters within the tall grass on the banks. Renee shook free of her paralysis, grabbed Carli's hand, and yanked her out into the open. Under the moon's accusing glare they sped away, tearing a path through the grass to escape the creatures that had all but destroyed the human race.
Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Omnilit, and in print.
WILLOW IN THE DESERT
(Sequel to The Willow and the Stone)
"5 stars. The full-on pace of this continuing story has picked up, giving the reader a jam-packed action-adventure that rates as one of the best I've ever read. I rarely got a chance to catch my breath in this one...I just couldn't put the book down." -Merrylee, Manic Readers review
But the
seemingly lifeless Black Pyramid that sits in nuclear-blasted San Francisco
isn’t as harmless as they thought, and death is heading east to Freetown. A new menace has been birthed in the dark,
dead pyramid, one that could finally finish off
humans once and for all.
Royce Cummings sat on a splintered park bench, eating a slab of ham and
a small pouch full of grape tomatoes with his bare hands. The ham was pure salty goodness, plenty to be
grateful for. He was happy to be eating
meat, meat not scavenged from another animal’s kill or gained at the risk of
life and limb. Royce made sure to be
grateful, because superstition warned if he wasn’t, he might go hungry again.
Maybe downright starved like he’d been only a year ago. Nope, a slab of ham and a couple handfuls of
tomatoes were something to celebrate, thank you Jesus.
Still, a part of his brain that always felt the glass was half empty
refused to adopt the good manners going without should have taught it. That traitorous part of Royce’s mind couldn’t
help wishing the ham nestled between two slices of pillow-soft white bread. That it might be topped with a couple of
squares of Swiss cheese and some spicy brown mustard slathered on thick. Six years hadn’t cured his craving for
store-bought white bread, for Swiss cheese, for spicy brown mustard. For that matter, any kind of mustard. Hell, he’d settle for that Dijon stuff they
used to make the funny commercials about; the ads with snooty men in the backs
of limos sneering over sandwiches.
Six years ago. Was that all it
had been? His life before the Black
Pyramids landed, before the Old Ones came and put mankind on the endangered
species list, seemed to have belonged to someone else. A different Royce Cummings whose biggest
bitches had once been as mundane as missing condiments. A Royce who had never laid awake at night,
wondering if that creaking sound was an insectoid alien, come to sip his blood
like some monstrous mosquito. A man who
had never pissed himself in the shelter of a dumpster, while the foul creatures
stalked past, blessedly unaware of his presence.
At least things had gotten a little better since the invasion. Out here in the Nevada desert, one could
relax a little. Here the glaring sun
made things inhospitable to the majority of the night crawling aliens. A man could make a new life, even. This was exactly what he and about 300 other
humans had done in their little town called Gander’s Gulch.
If you were someone weary of the constant fight to stay alive and
Providence had put you on old Highway 762 near Cyrus Air Force Base, Gander’s
Gulch was an oasis in the bleached desert.
Hell, it was paradise, lack of mustard notwithstanding. Its prior inhabitants had been wiped out in
the first wave of the alien attack. All
the pre-Pyramid Gulchers were presumed lost, having been harvested for food or
slave labor by the creatures that looked like the progeny of mythical giants
crossed with praying mantises.
Royce was one of the people that had taken the small, abandoned town
and made it viable again. A high fence
surrounded the heart of it. Its gates
were closed and locked up tight during the fear-filled nights with armed guards
patrolling just inside. Fruits and
vegetables were grown in the vast greenhouses at the west end of Gander’s
Gulch, and animals were raised for food on the northern edge. The tiny settlement got its water from an
underground spring. Today Royce and
several of his fellow Gulchers were laying down new irrigation pipes from the
spring to siphon water more easily to the town.
Little amenities went a long way towards contentment.
It was a life of hard work, of harsh climate, of few conveniences. But it was life, and not a bad one at
that. Unlike their eastern neighbors in
Freetown, Gulchers were content to defend their little bit of land from the
occasional marauding Old One and live out their existence pretending the world
hadn’t changed so much after all. Royce
had no interest in journeying a day’s walk down old Highway 762 and another
day’s walk on the even older Route 14.
He didn’t want to live among warriors and shamans. Let the Freetowners wage their crazy war
against the Pyramids, shedding more human blood against the might of a greater
alien technology. People like Royce
would take what enjoyment they could from what was left of their lives.
Yeah, a world without mustard wasn’t so bad, comparatively speaking.
Royce turned from his ruminations on what had been and what was. He munched on ham, thank you Jesus, and
listened to two younger men discuss the merits of the McClonsky sisters. Spare and tanned and weathered at the ripe
old ages of 26 and 29, the women in question were prime examples of what
Gulchers looked like. On post-Pyramid
Earth, a sense of humor and willingness to work for the good of all were the
new barometers of attractiveness. The
McClonsky sisters possessed both attributes in spades, and Royce had already
had the pleasure of entertaining the elder one in an intimate manner several
times. She liked him too, and it had
only been a few weeks since they’d decided to make their pairing a permanent
arrangement. He smiled to himself as the
young men, Sam and Cal, plotted their schemes to lure the women into their
clutches.
Sorry boys, but Shelly
McClonsky is off the table. We’ve
already been assigned a private room.
Now there was a thought to make him beam, if Royce had been the beaming
type. A room all to themselves, just him
and Shelly. Sure they’d still be in the
same building they already lived in and near the safety of all the rest of the
Gulchers, but their new quarters would be out of the dorms. Nice and private. They could have been already moved in three
days ago, but Shelly was making the room nice and wanted to surprise him. Tomorrow night, she’d promised, and worth the
wait.
Fuck the mustard. He, Royce
Cummings, had Shelly McClonsky for a bedmate.
Life was damned good. The glass
was half full. Maybe even three-quarters
full.
He finished his ham and tomatoes and washed them down with a canteen
full of water. A breeze lifted, sending
nettles of stinging sand against exposed skin.
The now-familiar grit in the tightest of bodily crevices hardly
registered anymore. If Royce noticed it
at all, it was the slightest of discomforts, one a man got used to quick if he
didn’t want to go crazy. It didn’t
matter he was covered in loose clothing.
His long pants, sleeves, and floppy hat left only his hands and face
exposed, but Royce would have a coating of sand on every inch of his body when
the day was done. Probably already
did. The fine particles got everywhere,
even in places where a man wasn’t aware he had places.
The dry voice of the desert breeze was joined by a strange whir of
scraping against shifting sand and the asphalt of the cracked Main Street
. Royce didn’t recognize the sound. He was aware that the new noise had been
there in the background for some time now, growing so gradually that he was
only just becoming cognizant of it on a conscious level. He frowned but felt no alarm until a
high-pitched scream sounded from far away.
With the alacrity that comes from being prey for so long, he and the
dozen other men on the irrigation detail were on their feet and feeling for
their guns. But it was daylight, the
safe time. No one was armed. Instead, hands gripped the hammers and
wrenches that were holstered in the low-slung tool belts many wore.
Cal’s lips skinned back from his teeth in an unconscious snarl. “What the hell was that?”
Pierce Thomas answered in his dry croak of a voice. Pierce was the eldest Gulcher in residence,
ancient at 52 in this harsh day and age of the Old Ones. “Sounded like someone screamed in the
direction of the greenhouses.”
Shelly was working the greenhouses today. She’d promised to pick a few strawberries for
a special treat tonight. “We’d better go
check,” Royce said, hearing a tremor in his voice.
But there was nothing to fear.
Nothing came from the ruined west anymore, where radiation from a failed
nuclear attack on the San Francisco Pyramid still made the area unlivable. And it was daylight. Neither the Old Ones nor their progeny the
Becoming could be about.
The men started towards the western end of town. Royce saw a wall of dust devils spinning in
the air from that direction. Sand storms
were not rare here. With irrigation no
longer used to keep up artificially green lawns and gardens, the desert had
worked hard to reclaim its landscape.
Even the highway disappeared for stretches of miles under layers of sand
and scrub. But this was no dust storm,
not with the breeze only an occasional breath.
This was more like the blowup from the one stampede Royce had witnessed
when the Gulchers’ cows had gotten loose and panicked in the middle of town.
There was something moving within the dust, and the whirring sound grew
steadily louder. It wasn’t the heavy
thuds of cow hooves at all. This was a
finer, lighter sound, like the pad of children’s shoeless footfalls.
It made Royce’s throat close
with anxiety. He halted, noticing out of
the corner of his eyes his fellow Gulchers doing the same. “What the hell is that?” he asked.
No one answered. He wanted his
gun, lying under his thin pillow in the dorm where all the windows were boarded
up. Whatever made up those shadows that
shifted in that cloud of whirling sand was probably nothing of note, but he
wanted his gun anyway. And he wanted to
be in the comparative safety of the blockaded dorm building, which had once
been an elementary school in the pre-Pyramid world.
The shapes within the dust became clearer as they neared. There were many of them. It was impossible to tell how many in that
roiling soup of sand, but there were a lot.
A shitload, as Royce would say had he the voice to speak.
Then Royce got his first glimpse of what it was kicking up the dry
landscape.
Someone spoke, maybe Cal. “Oh
shit. Those are aliens!”
Pierce answered, his voice climbing high on the register in terror even
as he refuted the declaration. “Don’t be
stupid. Aliens can’t come out during the
day.”
But they were aliens. Not like
Royce had ever seen though. These were
different from the Old Ones with their smooth, creaseless, nose-less faces,
their mouths replaced by long, thin siphons that punched easily into skin and
vein and sucked one’s blood out. These
were movie monster horrors, their once-human faces running downwards as if
they’d been partially melted and hardened again that way. Sores erupted all over the reddened skin of
the mostly naked creatures. Many
possessed misshapen versions of the Old Ones’ praying mantis arms, though a few
had stumps with rudimentary hands instead.
None had siphons. Instead they
had great, grinning mouths, mouths filled with dagger teeth that gnashed as
they came on, like they anticipating biting into Royce and his fellows. The teeth, which would have made sharks
proud, were made for tearing flesh and bone and gristle.
As if in a nightmare, Royce turned from the oncoming monsters. His numb legs started a jerky, sluggish run
for his gun, sheltered impotently in the dormitory three blocks away. He didn’t
have to consciously tell his body to move, though it seemed the air had turned
to thick, sticky molasses that dragged every step out for hours at a time. His feet slapped the sand-covered road in
slow motion. His heart boomed in his
ears, a bass drum in the sudden cymbal crash of yells and screams behind him as
the men scattered in different directions.
His breath sobbed in and out, screeching like a badly tuned violin. Beneath the hellish symphony whispered the
dry whir of the mutant alien creatures gaining on him.
The buildings of Gander’s Gulch crept past, reluctant to fall behind as
Royce ran for his life. The old brick
City Hall building where they held town meetings was the first to drift
back. Next he passed the post office,
where three white trucks tinged with rust sat forever in its parking lot on
cracked, flat tires. Then the Episcopal
Church, where so many had taken shelter to pray during the invasion and were
captured by invaders who did not acknowledge the power of God. The town library, its children’s section
still festooned with faded posters that cajoled little tykes to read a book
every day. And at last the yellow
painted brick school, now the Gulchers’ dormitory. It beckoned to Royce to hurry, its boarded
and barbed wire windows promising protection.
A million years might have passed, or so it seemed to Royce, as he
fought to reach the dorm. The
sand-buried asphalt caught his booted feet with every step and sucked them into
its surface like quicksand. The pair of
glass doors never came closer no matter how many steps he took. And yet the screams of other people and the
triumphant inhuman cries of their pursuers remained behind him. At last he was on the cracked sidewalk,
veering right to get to the school’s entrance.
The doors receded in the distance even as he ran and ran and ran towards
them. Then an age later his boots
thudded on the brick steps, three of them, to the concrete slab just before the
doors. His hand closed around the metal
handle of one and he concentrated on narrowing his gaze on that, terrified to
look at the glass before him for fear of what might appear in the reflection
behind.
Then he was inside, within the blessed confines of the building he
called home. Royce raced into the
darkness of the dorm. He grabbed his
flashlight from his belt, switched it on, and ran for the gymnasium that most
of the single men slept in. It never
occurred to him that the flashlight, fitted with rechargeable batteries kept
alive by a generator run on rendered pig fat, might attract the monsters he
attempted to elude. Royce forgot that
the monsters were out in broad daylight.
Six years had taught him light was life, a weapon against the sensitive
eyes of the Old Ones. Light was every
human’s friend and defender. He wasn’t
able to unlearn that in the three and a half eternal minutes since the new threat’s
appearance.
When he reached the former gymnasium which housed one hundred seventy
men, Royce went straight to his bed.
There the gun waited, ready and loaded under his pillow, its metal
somehow cool even in the desert heat.
Royce sobbed his gratitude to feel it in his hand, more comforting than
any child’s teddy bear.
He could now get to one of the shelters, the easily defensible places
where Gulchers had hidden days’ worth of supplies in the event of an
emergency. The closest one was in the
basement of the school’s gym, down the stairs at the end of the hall. It wasn’t far. If he was careful, he’d make it okay. He turned, his gun clasped close to his
chest.
A sore-blistered alien pincer came out of the darkness, knocking the
gun from his hand. The firearm
disappeared in the darkness beyond his flashlight’s beam, lost.
Royce’s brain operated as sluggishly as his run to the school had
seemed. It was still planning the best
route to the shelter as the monstrous creature attached to the pincer loomed
over him and shoved him down on his bed.
He was thinking how the steel barricade on the shelter’s door would not
bow to the strength of a hundred Old Ones as the hideous thing tore his shirt
open, displaying the double ladders of ribs on his whip-muscled frame. He slowly realized his gun had gone missing,
and he decided he would have to find it again before he went in search for
Shelly. At least he hadn’t lost the
flashlight. While his brain still
refused to absorb what his senses said, he saw the thing leaning over him, its
shark’s teeth flashing in the illumination as it bent to his abdomen.
His mind was just beginning to catch up with the here and now when the
monster took its first bite of him.
Fortunately for Royce, disbelief had driven away his body’s ability to
tell the rest of him it was in pain. He
only felt a slight tugging and a curious warmth as blood began to flow heavily,
escaping its flesh cage. He didn’t even
scream as he was eagerly fed upon, the mutant Old One swallowing his flesh in
unchewed chunks.
It doesn’t hurt because I’m in
shock, he thought and died.
One woman of shaken faith stands between the mother of demons and humanity’s destruction.
Alex Williams has battled demons all her life. Now Lilith, the mother of all demonkind, has
declared war on the human race. To
defeat the immortal succubus, Alex must lay aside her hatred and work with two half-demons,
Colwyn and Jacob. Alex and Colwyn are prepared to destroy each
other at the first sign of treachery.
What they don’t expect is the passion that overcomes them. To defeat Lilith, Alex must embrace what she
believes profane and trust the half-demon who might turn against her at any
moment.
Genre: Horror
Warning: Contains
explicit sex and violence.
Available from Amazon, and Smashwords. Coming soon to Nook and print.
Excerpt:
Despite her best efforts, Alex dropped right on top of the dead man. The body squelched beneath her, and the air went muddy with the scent of spoiled meat. His blank eyes stare into hers, the windows to his soul looking into a bare, unfurnished room. She controlled an urge to scream – barely. Her stomach heaved, and she scrambled off the bed. The ripe odor of death hung about her, and Alex held her breath as she hurried to the door. There she paused, willing her galloping heartbeat to slow to a trot. Panic edged back but kept a hungry eye on her.
Alex pulled the vial of holy water from her coat pocket and unstoppered it. With a shuddering breath she cracked the door open.
A powerful thrum slammed through her body and forced her to stumble backwards. The demon recognition hit her with the force of a tidal wave. She tried to scream, but only a whistling hiss of breath escaped. Alex staggered in a drunken pirouette to the middle of the room, one hand outstretched to ward off the demonic presence, the other pulling back the holy water as if she readied to throw the first pitch of a baseball game.
Alone and small, Alex had indeed
blundered into the lair of the Beast. A
moaned litany escaped her lips. “I can’t. I can’t.
I can’t...”
Staring at the dark hallway beyond
the open door, she wept the tears of a terrified child. Who was she to confront such a monster? Lilith would surely annihilate her within
seconds. With all that power, she couldn’t
be stopped, couldn’t even be slowed. Lilith
would destroy them all. Such malevolence
would crush everything in its path. Alex’s
puny arsenal of prayers and spells would be like pebbles thrown at a tank. Incantations would be no more to the ancient
demoness than nursery rhymes.
Demon recognition pulsed at her,
sending her thoughts into chaos. The storm
pounded its fury on the roof overhead, adding to the confusion. She had to get out; she had to run before the
demoness scented the interloper in her den and came for her. Alex turned back to the open window.
The corpse lying on the bed
confronted her. The bloody, torn carcass
blocked her path, stopping her from climbing out the window into the curtain of
rain, from running from the house, from leaving the state to hide from Lilith
and the Segreto forever. She couldn’t
crawl over that silently screaming remnant again.
The only other way out was to go into
the hall and chance facing the demoness.
Her mind raced between the two options like a frantic squirrel caught in
a cage. Her whimpered chant of “Ican’tIcan’tIcan’t...”
grew louder. Soon she’d scream it, and
Lilith would come. The thought didn’t
quiet her; it fed her panic and raised the volume of her voice.
A weight dragged on her neck and
grew heavier. Alex clutched at it and
grabbed her silver crucifix on its black cord.
She brought it before her eyes and stared at the tiny form of Christ,
stretched upon the cross, sacrificed to save man from evil. One man, alone. Like her, the salvation of all humankind. The metal in her palm felt warm,
comforting. It seemed to infuse her with
strength.
I’m
Segreto. God’s warrior. Humanity’s only chance in Lilith’s hell.
The thought struck like a splash of
cold water in her face. Reason
returned. Others had faced Lilith and
driven her back to the ether. The task
was suicidally immense but not impossible.
Alex’s ragged breath eased, and her heart slowed a little. Her body still trembled, but her thoughts had
cleared.
Besides,
the bitch doesn’t know I’m here. I’ve
got a hell of a surprise in store for her.
She squared her shoulders. She approached the door to the hall
again.
Alex peeked out into the dark
hall. She discovered the room she was in
stood about halfway between the lit front room and the back door. The television spoke in a mindless drone over
the rain that pounded on the roof, the two providing plenty of noise to cover
her presence if she was careful. Alex
eased out of the bedroom.
The hum of her talent intensified as
she drew closer to her enemy. She passed
the doorway of a darkened kitchen and wrinkled her nose at the rancid odor of
spoiled food. It was still more pleasant
than the rotting body she’d left behind.
Peering into the room, she saw nothing except the reflection of metal
from the stove’s burners and its litter of pots and pans.
Alex returned her attention to the
lit room ahead. She thought she heard a
cry behind her and turned. She saw
nothing but the hallway leading to the back door. She listened, but there was no repeat of the
sound; all that reached her ears was her own breath, the drum of rain, and the
television.
She resumed her approach towards the
front of the house. As she moved closer,
she heard the polished tones of a newscaster.
“...350 bodies found in a mass
grave. Apparently, the victims had been
buried alive...”
Something chuckled over the
television’s volume. Alex halted at the
obscene sound. Her bladder nearly gave
way.
The laughter was inhuman, as if Hell
itself had gained the ability to express humor.
Some loathsome, diseased thing reveled in the destruction of
others. Something that didn’t belong
among humankind.
Alex’s upper lip skinned back from her
teeth in an unconscious snarl. She was
still awash in fear, but an instinctive hatred boiled within her as well.
You
have no business on my world. God left
it to us, you thieving bitch. You may
take it, but as the saying goes, it’ll be over my very dead body.
All her attention locked on the
doorway before her. Her fist tightened
around the vial of holy water. Alex
passed the kitchen door.
The toe of her shoe collided with a
broken wedge of a plate. It clattered
across the hardwood floor, a cymbal crash amid the drumming of rain. The whole house seemed to echo with the sound
and amplify it until she clapped her hands to her ears.
“Naamah?”
Alex froze and held her breath. Her heart thumped painfully. A shadow appeared on the wall in the
television room.
“Naamah, is that you?”
The shadow grew and glided toward
the hall, its darkness slipping eel-like towards her. Alex stepped back, watching it as it
advanced. Her foot landed on a wet blob
and slid out from under her. With a
startled gasp she crashed on her backside with a solid thump, the holy water
held aloft in her right hand. Liquid splashed
over her fingers.
“Who’s there?” The shadow charged forward. The thrum of Alex’s talent grew into a
scream.
When Alex, Colwyn, and Jacob Lasham exiled the mother of demonkind from
Earth 25 years ago, they thought they’d never see her again. Yet evil refuses to stay dead, and Lilith has
a score to settle with the trio. She is
determined to have Earth as her undisputed realm, and the Lashams will be the
first to fall in her renewed war.
Alex and Colwyn’s daughter Lena has no interest in the family business
of destroying demons. She is young and
carefree and wants to be normal ... as normal as a clairvoyant quarter-demon
can be, anyway. However, Lilith’s return
threatens her family, and Lena is forced to take up the fight alongside her
parents and uncle.
This time, Lilith has the upper hand and the destruction of mankind is
imminent. Lena discovers that to save
the Earth she must do the unthinkable:
join forces with the one creature more deadly and profane than even
Lilith. But will Lena’s agreement with
the Father of Lies be worth the lives of all mankind, her sanity, and her
soul? Or will she become the gateway for
a greater destruction to Earth?
Chapter 1
Oblivion. Nowhere.
The endless void. Perfect,
sublime nothingness. Here the essence of
what had been a dread creature rested, one despised by mankind, angelic beings,
and evil entities alike. She drifted, feeling safe and quiet for the eternal
moment. Restoring. Recovering.
She
always came to this place between struggles.
Where pain disappeared and she could huddle with her neverending
disappointment and anger, screaming silently against the unfairness of her
situation. Where she could castigate
herself for blind stupidity once again.
But she
hadn’t been stupid this last time. She’d
been smart, her plan flawless, her supremacy unmatched. Still, it hadn’t mattered. She’d been sent away, defeated once
more.
Here
between the realms of Heaven, Hell, and Earth she knew she’d find a semblance
of peace eventually. She floated in the
ethereal plane, where nothing else existed and nothing mattered. While others found only madness in this vast
void, she found relief.
The
entity didn’t know how long she’d been here this time. She’d at last gotten to the point where
ceaseless rage no longer held her in its violent grip. She was able to rest for longer and longer
periods of time, to not think of what had been kept just out of her straining
reach once more. Long enough to bask in
nothingness. Still, she knew it hadn’t
been a great stretch of time because she didn’t want to go back to Earth
yet. The abyss still comforted her too
much, offering a reprieve from the chaos.
It was safe here, away from the burning hatred, the overriding need for
revenge, and the pain.
Oh God,
there was so much pain in that other place.
Later
she would reflect that last thought must have been what had summoned the golden
light. It crept in so gradually that she
remained blissfully unaware of it at first.
Who knew how long the Other had waited for those words, patiently biding
its time? But time was meaningless
here. Seconds felt like eons, and
eternity waned within seconds. Time was
only a fabrication made by man after all.
The
light snuck up on her, so very stealthy that it had chased away most of the
black oblivion before she grew cognizant of its arrival. It had inched in to fill her senses with
warmth and alien contentment. It was
like being in a living sunbeam. Its
silent, imperceptible advent lulled her.
She remained blissfully unaware she was no longer alone until a sound
like an eternally exhaling breath drifted mistily through her essence. Even then she didn’t panic until she heard
something like tinkling bells in the nonexistent distance.
In her
great dread, she didn’t try to reason that the Other was never far away. The Other was everywhere. It simply chose to express itself only in
certain places and for certain entities.
But right now, all she knew was she needed to get back to the empty
ether, to where the Other never spoke.
Where the questions and accusations would not come. But where had the void disappeared to? Everywhere she turned, she beheld only the
golden light, and those terrifyingly sweet tinkling bells were coming closer.
Then the
Other’s voice spoke, still so well-known despite the millennia since she’d last
heard it. It was as much felt as heard,
no harsher than a summer’s breeze and yet mightier than the most earthshaking
clap of thunder. She shrank before its
quiet, monumental force, becoming a tiny mote of consciousness in its vast
presence.
Lilith. Lost, angry child of Mine.
She made
a soundless scream to hear her name spoken by that yearned for and despised
voice. She made herself smaller, as if
she could ever deny the all-seeing eyes.
Why are you hiding from
me? Stay in the light and let yourself
see for once.
Instead,
she flew away, feeling the atmosphere around her growing denser as if it would
hold her in place, a helpless insect caught in a Venus flytrap. No, no, she had to escape. She could not face the Other, could not bear
the disappointment, the millennia of wrongs she had committed, the judgment
that must follow. The air thickened,
bearing heavily against her as she sought the empty void. She came up against a barrier, something solid.
Lilith. Stay with Me.
It
almost sounded sad, as if entreating a long lost lover. It was a trick, of course. It had to be.
She could never feel its adoration again. She wandered permanently astray, with no way
home ever. She clawed at the unseen wall
trapping her, dashed herself against it until she broke through.
She fell
like a stone, plummeting faster and faster.
The golden light changed; it became orange and then hectic red, and she
imagined she fell into a fiery pit. She
closed her eyes against the angry glare, the light behind her closed eyelids
scarlet like blood.
When she
came up hard against another barrier, too solid to be the flames she’d been
certain she’d find, she clawed at it too.
Pain dug into her fingertips, the obstruction gritty against her skin,
the scent of brine filling her nose…
Fingertips? Skin?
Nose?
She
opened her startled eyes. She had
returned to the material without trying, back before she was ready, she was
solid, she was…
…on
Earth again. Shuddering all over, Lilith
dragged herself to her bare feet in the middle of a thin, one-lane gravel
road.
She was
corporeal and naked. Usually, she
carefully prepared before chancing the Earth realm again, looking for just the
right time and place to launch another offensive against the children of Adam. To cleanse the world, her world, of mankind’s infestation. Panicked by the presence of the Other, she
had blundered back senseless and blind.
Lilith
looked around at her surroundings. Dark
enveloped the world, signaling nighttime, with no one around to see her
naked. Long wavy red hair flowed over
her shoulders, covering her bountiful breasts.
The air wafted soothingly warm, the breeze refreshing rather than
leaving her shivering with cold. No, the
fine tremors that ran down her frame were from reaction to the near encounter
with the Other on the ethereal plane, not to mention the shock of suddenly
finding herself physical once more.
A slight
breeze sighed. In its wake, the few pine
trees that dotted the area whispered secrets overhead. The soft splashing of waves of the nearby
creek lapped against a wooden bulkhead.
The sound seemed very familiar to Lilith, as did the sea salt teasing
her nostrils.
A
simple, rustic cabin occupied the lot on one side of the gravel lane where she
stood. Its porch light glowed like a
tiny golden sun, orbited by dozens of fluttering moths. On the other side, facing the cabin, was a
pretty white cottage with a wraparound porch.
She’d never seen either place, but the general landscape seemed eerily
familiar.
After a
moment, Lilith gasped, recognizing her surroundings. She only had to imagine a tidy doublewide
trailer instead of the cabin and a derelict two-story house in place of the
storybook cottage. This was where she
had last left the Earth, falling in all-too familiar defeat while battling a
member of her age-old enemy, the Segreto.
Her lips
wrinkled back in an unconscious snarl.
The Segreto. Had there ever been
such a hated entity? For untold
centuries, the organization had kept her from claiming what by all rights
should belong to her. First it had been
the Hebrews who had defied her, loose confederations located in the larger
towns. Those ancient people performed
rites to send her away when she dared to walk the Earth. They defeated her at every turn as she tried
to take back what Adam and his simpering second wife Eve had stolen. Then with the rise of Christendom and the
Catholic Church, the secretive Segreto had taken up the fight, thwarting her
time after time in her pursuit of murderous justice.
The last
time Lilith had tried to wrest control of Earth from mankind, she’d wiped out
all but one of the holy sect. With no
way to know how many years had passed since that last fight, she wondered if
the bitch Alex Williams still lived. If
the Segreto had reformed and awaited the demoness’ return.
“I’m not
ready to do this again,” Lilith hissed to herself. She felt a scream uncoiling in the pit of her
belly, but she refused to voice it.
Prepared or not, she was back on Earth.
She would not be able to return to the calm darkness of the ether until
the body she’d spun out of nothingness was destroyed.
At least
the cover of night concealed the mother of demonkind for now. Had she descended into the middle of a busy
marketplace in daylight, she would have had many problems to contend with. Her enemies might have been made aware of her
quickly. She had time to do a little
thinking before she had to make a move.
Before
any real decisions could be made, she needed to find clothing and a place to
live. A safe base of operations, if she
was to take up the fight for her realm once more. But for the moment, curiosity won out over
self-preservation.
Lilith
looked at the crude but homey cabin, now on the site where her enemy had
lived. Where Alex Williams had destroyed
her hopes yet again. Was she still in
residence? Did she live on this spot
yet, thinking herself safe from the immortal succubus who’d nearly killed her
and her unborn child?
Lilith
crept to the home’s front window. The
sheers were closed but the curtains pulled back, giving her a gauzy glimpse
into the cabin’s den. Blue light from
the television flickered. In its
illumination, she caught sight of a man seated in a recliner before it. He was intent on the images flashing across
the large flat screen, so she looked over the situation as best as she could.
The
furniture was big and bulky, the television the only thing hanging on the
wall. What looked like a pile of
clothing heaped on the floor on one side.
Fishing rods leaned in the far corner.
Wooden TV trays on crossbar legs served as tables. She saw nothing to suggest femininity about
the room.
Lilith
decided to take the chance that the man stayed alone in the cabin. Perhaps he was a bachelor or just getting
away from his family, but the single vehicle in the driveway, a huge mud
splattered pickup truck, also gave her reason to believe the man had no company
in the cabin.
Reassured,
she went to the front door. A small
diamond-shaped window reflected her image back at her, and she blinked to see
herself with the same features as the last time she’d been on Earth. Big green eyes rimmed with long, dark
lashes. Straight, upturned nose. High cheekbones. Full, pouty lips. A gorgeous creature that turned men’s
heads. She looked down at her body,
paying attention for the first time. She
had formed exactly as before; huge tits, tiny waist, round hips. If Alex Williams was still alive, was still
living in this spot, she’d know Lilith on sight.
The
demoness dismissed the concern and knocked.
She waited patiently, listening to heavy footsteps approach from
within. Seconds later the door swung
open, and a ruggedly handsome man peered out at her.
“Yeah –
whoa, what the hell?” His eyes were
perfectly round as he took in the improbable sight of a statuesque naked
redhead standing on his porch.
Lilith
didn’t give him time to realize he was in trouble. She grabbed him by the back of the neck and
captured his gaze with hers. Almost
immediately his face went slack.
“Is
anyone else here?” she demanded.
“No. They’re at home.” His voice sounded low, as if he dredged it
from somewhere deep inside himself.
“Only
you? And you don’t expect anyone to come
here tonight?” she pressed. She had to
be sure.
“Yes. I am all alone for the weekend.”
“Do you
know Alex Williams?”
“Never
heard of – wait, she owned this property before the guy I bought it from. I saw her name on the papers.”
No
Segreto bitch to fight right away then.
Tension bled from Lilith’s shoulders.
“Do you have any women’s clothes here?”
“My wife
has some things she keeps in the closet.”
Lilith
could hope there would be something that would fit. She smiled.
“You want me.”
Her
victim said nothing, but a line of drool escaped from one corner of his slack
mouth. When Lilith’s hand went to his
crotch, she found him hard. And big. Her smile grew. “Good.
You will do very well. Show me to
the bedroom and take your clothes off.”
The man
immediately turned and marched inside.
She followed him down a hall, admiring his wide shoulders and the taut
buttocks wrapped in tight jeans. Very
delectable for a descendant of Adam, though she reviled the race.
Clothing,
shelter for the night, and a delicious-looking man to feed on. It was a good start.
No comments:
Post a Comment