Flight From Death

  I ducked my head, laughing. “Yes. Yes, they did.”

  She let out a satisfied sigh. “I’m so glad. They were best of friends for a long time. I don’t wish bad luck on anybody but . . . if it brought them back together, that’s a good thing.” She gave me a keen look. “I think, Shimmer . . . you are going to keep Alex on his toes. And vice versa. And this is going to be a fun one to watch play out.”

  Then, I did blush. “It’s so new . . . I don’t really even know what it is.”

  “You’ll figure it out. And you have me to talk to if you want.” She patted my arm. “Go home now, and get some rest.”

  I glanced at the clock. “Yeah, I’m tired. And Alex is waiting, I’d better go.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she said, a twinkle in her eyes. “Have fun, child.” And then she gave me a quick hug and sent me out the door.

  • • •

  Alex parked the Range Rover in front of my house. “Here we are.” He leaned back, staring at me. “It’s up to you, Shimmer. Was Port Townsend a fluke? Or . . . is there more there for you? There is for me, if you’re willing to give it a go?”

  Now that we were alone and back in Seattle, I felt oddly shy. But I didn’t have to think it over. “Let’s see where this takes us. No promises, no guarantees. But we owe it to ourselves to give us a chance.”

  With a soft smile, he leaned forward, clutching the steering wheel. “I’m so glad you said that. I would respect whatever decision you made, but I . . .” He stopped, glancing sideways at me. “No, not going there yet. It’s too soon. But, Shimmer . . . you’re incredible. And I want you to know that I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  I smiled softly. “I know. Listen . . . On the business side of things . . . I didn’t muck anything up too badly, did I? On the trip? Other than getting us lost on the way there?”

  With a laugh, Alex shook his head. “On the contrary, you were wonderful, Shimmer. You had a few moments there, but we all did. You’re going to make a good team player. So don’t worry about that. You’ll get nothing but a stellar review to the Wing-Liege about this.” He paused. “Will Chai be staying with you?” There was a tinge of something in his voice I couldn’t pinpoint. Disapproval . . . disappointment?

  I nodded. “He’s a good friend, Alex. He can help us out at times. And . . . I need to feel like I have some touchstone here. As long as Chai stays, I have some sort of family. You know? Ralph has his family. You . . . you have Bette. I don’t have anybody.”

  Alex reached out and took my hand, holding it as he caressed my palm with one cool finger. I looked up and he caught my gaze. His eyes glimmered, their frosty light flaring as he stared at me, refusing to look away. My breath tight in my chest, I suddenly felt dizzy as he leaned toward me.

  “I have Bette, yes—and so do you, whether you know it or not. But you have me, Shimmer. Never think that you don’t.”

  Before I realized what was happening, he whispered my name and his lips met mine. They were cool and insistent, pulling me under as the kiss deepened. I closed my eyes, parting my lips ever slightly to allow him access. And then, I was in his arms and he tangled one fist in my hair, holding me tight. His lips lowered to my neck, and he licked the skin softly. I could feel the edge of his fangs scrape against my throat, and then . . . and then . . . he pulled back, letting go.

  Breathing hard, I stared at him. “Do you have time to come in?”

  He let out a low laugh. “All the time in the world, love. Sunrise won’t roll around for a while.”

  And so we went inside, and the house seemed much warmer and fuller than when I had left. Signs of Chai were everywhere, but he himself seemed to have vanished. I knew he was around but giving us our space. As I led Alex into the bedroom, eyeing his lanky form, I realized that I wanted this to work—all of this. Seattle. The agency. Alex. I wanted something in my life that wasn’t transitory. Something real.

  Alex took one look at the bed, then at me. “Come here, you dragon wench.” He took my hand and pulled me to him, trailing kisses down my cheek, onto my neck as he slid one hand up my shirt.

  Fumbling for my belt and zipper, I began to strip, hungrier for him than the first time. This was new, like I had told Bette, and I didn’t know where it was leading but I wanted to follow the trail and find out. As we slid beneath the covers and he began to explore my body, the sounds of city streets provided their own kind of music. Cars passing by, the thrum of the lights and the concrete.

  “Alex . . .” I whispered his name, my thoughts whirling from the sensations of his hands on my body, of his cock thrusting deep within me. Yes, I was stuck here in Seattle for five years, but the future didn’t seem as bleak as it had. In fact, maybe . . . just maybe . . . it might turn out to be something wonderful. Either way, I decided right then, I was going to enjoy the journey, and lost myself in the touch of his cool skin against mine.

  THE PLAYLIST

  I write to music a good share of the time, and so I always put my playlists in the back of each book so you can see which artists/songs I listened to during the writing. Here’s the playlist for Flight from Death:

  AC/DC: “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution,” “Back in Black,” “Highway to Hell,” “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” “Hell’s Bells”

  Aerosmith: “Walk This Way,” “Dream On”

  AJ Roach: “Devil May Dance”

  Alice Cooper: “I’m the Coolest,” “Go to Hell”

  Arcade Fire: “Abraham’s Daughter”

  Asteroids Galaxy Tour: “The Golden Age,” “Heart Attack,” “Around the Bend,” “The Sun Ain’t Shining No More,” “Sunshine Coolin’”

  AWOLNATION: “Sail”

  Bad Girls: “M.I.A.”

  Beck: “Cellphone’s Dead,” “Broken Train,” “Qué Onda Guero,” “Nausea,” “Farewell Ride,” “Emergency Exit,” “Loser”

  Black Angels, The: “Don’t Play with Guns,” “Evil Things,” “Indigo Meadow,” “Holland,” “Young Men Dead,” “Manipulation,” “Bad Vibrations”

  Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: “Fault Line,” “Feel It Now”

  Black Sabbath: “Paranoid”

  Bret Michaels: “Love Sucks”

  Broken Bells: “The Ghost Inside”

  Cobra Verde: “Play with Fire”

  Crazy Town: “Butterfly”

  Dire Straits: “Down to the Waterline,” “Money for Nothing”

  Eels: “Souljacker Part I”

  Fatboy Slim: “Praise You”

  Foster the People: “Pumped Up Kicks”

  Garbage: “I Think I’m Paranoid,” “#1 Crush,” “Queer,” “Only Happy When It Rains”

  Gary Numan: “Are Friends Electric,” “Petals,” “Down in the Park,” “Cars (Remix),” “My Shadow in Vain”

  Gorillaz: “Last Living Souls,” “Hongkongaton,” “Dare,” “Feel Good Inc.,” “Rockit”

  Hugo: “99 Problems”

  In Strict Confidence: “Silver Bullets,” “Snow White”

  Ladytron: “Ghosts,” “I’m Not Scared,” “Burning Up”

  Little Big Town: “Bones”

  Madonna: “4 Minutes,” “Beautiful Stranger”

  Marcy Playground: “Comin’ Up from Behind”

  Morcheeba: “Even Though (Acoustic)”

  Pierces, The: “Secret”

  Puddle of Mudd: “Psycho”

  Rachel Digg: “Hands of Time”

  Rolling Stones: “Gimme Shelter”

  Screaming Trees: “All I Know,” “Dime Western,” “Where the Twain Shall Meet”

  Sewn: “The Feeling”

  Shriekback: “New Man,” “Night Town,” “Over the Wire,” “Big Fun”

  Stone Temple Pilots: “Sour Girl,” “Atlanta”

  Syntax: “Pride”

  Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”

  Verve, The: “Bitter Sweet Symphony”

  Turn the page to read a special excerpt from the next book from Yasmine Galenorn . . . br />
  AUTUMN THORNS

  Coming November 2015!

  ADVICE FOR VISITORS TO WHISPER HOLLOW

  If you hear someone call your name from the forest, don’t answer.

  Never interrupt Ellia when she’s playing to the dead.

  If you see the Girl in the Window, set your affairs in order.

  Try not to end up in the hospital.

  If the Crow Man summons you, follow him.

  Remember: Sometimes the foul are actually fair.

  And most important: Don’t drive down by the lake at night.

  Welcome to Whisper Hollow: Where the spirits walk among the living and the lake never gives up her dead.

  The road twisted, curving through a series of S-turns as my Honda CRV wound along Highway 101. To my left, the forest breathed softly, looming thick and black even though it was still early afternoon. Mingled amid the unending fir and cedar, brilliant leaves—in shades of autumn bronze and yellow—whirled off the branches of maple and birch to litter the ground with sodden debris. October in western Washington was a windy, volatile month. The fact that it was a Sunday evening worked for me, though. There weren’t many cars on the road.

  To my right, waves frothed across Lake Crescent as the wind whipped against the darkened surface. The rain shower turned into a drenching downpour and I eased off on the accelerator, lowering my speed to thirty-five miles per hour, and then to thirty. The drops were pelting so hard against the asphalt that all I could see was a blur of silver on black across the road. These winding back roads were dangerous. All it took was one skid toward the guard rail, one wrong turn of the wheel, and the Lady would claim another victim, dragging them down into her secreted recesses.

  It had been fifteen years since I had made this drive . . . fifteen years, a ferry ride, and about a hundred and twenty miles. I grabbed the ferry in Seattle over to Kingston, and then wound through Highway 104 up the interior of the Peninsula, till I hit Highway 101, which took me through Port Townsend, and past Port Angeles. Now, three hours after I had left the city, I neared the western end of Lake Crescent. The junction that would take me onto Cairn Street was coming up. From there, a twenty minute drive around the other side of the lake would lead me through the forest, back to Whisper Hollow.

  As I neared the exit, I veered off the road, onto the shoulder and turned off the ignition. This was it. My last chance to drive past, loop around the Olympic Peninsula and turn my back on all of the signs. But I knew I was just procrastinating against the inevitable. My life in Seattle had never really been my own, and this past month, when the Crow Man sent me three signs, I realized I was headed home. Then, last week, my grandmother died. Her death sealed the deal because, like it or not, it was my duty to step up and fill her shoes.

  I slowly opened the door, making sure I was far enough off the road to avoid being hit, and emerged into the rain- soaked evening. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I stared at the lake through the trees. The wind was whipping up currents on the water, the dark surface promising an icy bath to anything or anybody unlucky enough to be caught in it. The rising fog caught in my lungs and I coughed, the noise sending a murder of crows into the air from where they’d been resting in a tall fir. They circled over me, cawing, then headed north, toward Whisper Hollow.

  Crows. I pulled my jacket tighter against a sudden gust of wind that caught me from the side. Crows were messengers. In fact, the Crow Man had reached out all the way to Seattle, where he summoned me with three omens. The first sign had been the arrival of his flock in Seattle—they followed me everywhere, and I could feel his shadow walking behind them, looming down through the clouds.

  The second sign had been a recurring nightmare, for three nights running. Each night, I found myself walking along a dark and shrouded path through the Whisper Hollow cemetery, as the Blood Moon gleamed full and ripe overhead. As I came to the center of the graveyard, I saw—standing next to a headstone—Grandma Lila. Dripping wet and smelling of lake water and decay, she opened her arms and pulled me in, kissing me on both cheeks. Then she lit into me, tearing me up one side and down the other.

  “You’ve turned your back on your gift—on your heritage. Face it, girl, it’s time to accept what you are. Whisper Hollow is waiting. It’s time you came home to carry on with my duties. It won’t be long now, and you’ll be needed. You were born a spirit shaman, and you’ll die one—there’s no backing down. Something big is coming, and the town will need your help. Don’t let me down. Don’t let Whisper Hollow down.” Each of those three nights, I woke up crying, afraid to call her in case there was no answer on the other end of the line.

  The third sign came last week, a day or two after I had the last dream. Signs always go in threes. Always have. Third time’s the charm, true. But bad things happen in threes, as well. I was walking home from a morning gig at work, deep in thought, when I glanced at the store next to me. There, staring from behind the storefront was the Girl in the Window. A cold sweat broke over me, but when I looked again, she was gone. It couldn’t have been her, could it? The Girl in the Window belonged to Whisper Hollow and she was never seen outside the borders of the town. Squinting, I craned my neck, moving close to the pane. Blink . . . it was only a mannequin. But mannequin or not, my gut told me that I had been visited by the sloe-eyed Bean Nighe, dripping wet and beckoning to me.

  One of the rules of Whisper Hollow echoed back to haunt me. If you see the Girl in the Window, set your affairs in order. This was all the proof I needed. I went home and began to sort through my things. The next day, an express letter from Ellia arrived, informing me that my grandparents had gone off the road, claimed by the Lady of Crescent Lake. She was a hungry bitch, that one, and neither age nor status mattered in her selection of victims. The car hadn’t surfaced, and neither had my grandfather’s body—no shock there. But Grandma Lila had been found on the shore, hands placed gently over her chest in a sign of respect. Even the Lady knew better than get the Morrígan’s nose out of joint by disrespecting her emissaries.

  And now, a week later, I was on my way home to take Lila’s place before the dead started to walk. I sucked in a deep breath, took one last look at the lake, and returned to the car.

  “What do you think, guys?” A glance into the backseat showed Agent H, Gabby, and Daphne all glaring at me from their carriers. They weren’t at all happy with me, but the ride would be over soon.

  “Purp.” Gabby was the first to speak. She stared at me with golden eyes, her fur a glorious black, plush and thick. The tufts on her ears gave her an odd, feathered look, standard Maine Coon regalia. She let out another squeak and shifted in her carrier. Not to be outdone, Agent H—a huge brown tabby and also a Maine Coon—let out a short, loud, yowl. He was always vocal, and right now he was letting me know that he was not amused. Daphne, a tortoiseshell, just snorted and gave me a look that said, “Really, can we just get this over with?” They were littermates, three years old, and I had taken them in from a shelter after they were rescued from an animal hoarder. They had been three tiny balls of fluff when I brought them home. Now they were huge, and—other than Peggin—they were my closest friends.

  Frowning, I squinted at them. “You’re sure about this? You might not like living in Whisper Hollow, you know. It’s a strange town, and the people there are all . . . like me.”

  I stopped. That was the crux of it. The people in Whisper Hollow—they were my people. Even though I hadn’t been home in fifteen years I knew that both they, and the town, were waiting for me.

  Gabby pawed her face, cleaning her ears, and let out another squeak.

  “Okay. Final answer. Head home, it is.” With a deep breath, I pulled back onto the road, turning right as I eased onto Cairn Street. We were on our way back to Whisper Hollow, where the ghosts of the past were waiting to weave me into their world as seamlessly as the forest claimed the land, and the lake claimed her conquests.

  • • •

  I’m Kerris Fellwater and I’m a spirit shaman by
birth, which means I connect with the dead. I can talk to them, see them, and drive them back to their graves if they get out of hand. At least, that’s the goal and job description, if you want to think of it as a profession. The gift is my birthright, from the day I was born until the day I die. My training’s incomplete, of course, but instinct can take me a long way. And I’ve always been a rule breaker, so doing things my way seems the natural order of things.

  As my grandmother was, and her mother before her, I’m a daughter of the Morrígan. Our matriarchal line stretches back into the mists, as do the spirit shamans. I can feel and see energy, and I can manipulate it—to a degree. Some people might call me a witch, but the truth is, most magic I can cast is minor, except when it comes to the world of spirits and the dead. There, my power truly blossoms out.

  When I turned eighteen, after a major blowout with my grandfather, I decided to ditch my past, the town, and anything resembling family, so I took my high school diploma and the two hundred dollars I had saved, and headed for Seattle. I found a room for rent in the basement of a house, and a job at Zigfree’s Café Latte. Over the years, I worked my way up from barista to managing the store, but it was just something I did to pay the rent on my shiny new apartment.

  At night, I slipped out into the rainy streets to take on my second gig—one that made very little money, but that kept me sane. A few months after I arrived in Seattle, the headaches started. I knew what they were from, and the only way to stop them. If spirit shamans don’t use their powers, the energy can build up and implode—not a pretty future, to say the least. At the best, ignoring the power can drive one mad. At worst, it can kill from an energy overload.

  So I hunted around till I found a gig for a penny-paper that later turned into an online webzine as the Internet grew into something more than an oddity. I investigated haunted houses, and paranormal activity. On the side, I evicted a number of ghosts. The job didn’t pay much, but that didn’t matter to me. The coffee shop kept me in rent and food money, but the ghost hunting? That’s what kept the headaches at bay. I spent all my spare time tromping through haunted buildings, looking for the ghosts who were troublemakers—the dead who were too focused on the world of the living to do anybody any good.