THE RENEGADE

COMING IN 2007 FROM BLU PHIER PUBLISHING!

Excerpt from The Renegade:

Blindly reaching out, Vanessa grabbed the side of the tub and pulled herself into a sitting position, her head leaning on the edge. Lost in panic, she gasped for breath and tried to shake her vision clear. The colors slowed down, clicking into form like pictures in a slot machine. What she saw was not the hotel bathroom.

Instead, trees surrounded her. Vanessa froze, every nerve alert in her body for the telltale signs of danger. She heard scraping sounds and the labored breath of manual work. Turning her head, she saw an attractive mortal digging a hole a few yards away from her. Next to him was a decapitated body.
Her body reacting separately from her mind, Vanessa silently stood up to get a better look. Recognition flooded her mind and she realized that the body belonged to a fellow vampire. Something broke deep inside of her soul, triggering memories of Paul's brutal murder by a vampire hunter. Animated by rage, she let out a howl and rushed at the young man. Moving faster than any mortal could comprehend, she crossed the distance to the killer in less than a second . . . and passed right through him.
Running into nothing caused Vanessa to stop herself at once, but momentum forced her heels over head and she landed flat on her back on the ground. Shocked, she stared at the night sky for a second and listened to the soft thumps of dirt hitting dirt. She turned herself over and studied the young man. He had long, wavy black hair tied into a low ponytail at the back of his neck, the sweat from his task giving it a damp and unkempt appearance. What Vanessa noted most was his odd form of dress. Although dirty and torn and covered in blood, she could tell that the light brown trousers and stockings, matched with a flamboyantly cut waist jacket, were not in fashion anywhere in the world.
At least, she thought, not in this time.
He bent down and rolled the headless body into the freshly made grave, the head no where to be seen. Vanessa imagined it was buried elsewhere. While the man began pushing dirt onto the body, she stood up and moved closer. She heard the man speak.
"I'm sorry about this, Michel," he whispered, scooping more earth on the body. "I just can't let you take me anywhere. And now that I know what I am, things will get much better."

Vanessa jerked, her body feeling as though it was twisting inside out again, and she opened her eyes to water pouring over her face. Her head had slumped back into the tub, which had begun to fill with water as her feet covered the drain. She put her hands up to her face, trying to make sense out of what had just happened to her. She couldn't find any, especially when the man's words came back to her. She realized that it was odd that she knew what had been said at all. After all, she couldn't speak French.