The normal part of Lorelei MacAlister’s life didn’t just
slip away quietly the day Jared Kovach came to town. Nope. The normal part of
her life shattered. It exploded. It burst into a gazillion shards of fleeting
light.
It went out with a bang.
Goodbye normal.
Hello dark and eerie.
While her best friend, Brooklyn, is focusing all of her energy on helping
Lorelei hone her abilities, Lorelei is dealing with the reality that Satan’s
second in command has taken up residence inside her body. Oh, and the fact that
she has a crush on the Angel of Death. But what a beautiful death it is. If
those weren’t bad enough, something sinister has come to town and it wants
nothing more than to hear Lorelei’s dying breath as it strangles it out of her.
Thank goodness the gang has a supernatural champion. But what happens when the
only being who can save them switches sides midstream? How can a group of
misfits capture one of the most powerful beings ever created? And will they
find out how to bring Jared back to them before it’s too late?
Excerpt:
DEATH, DOOM AND
DETENTION
Chapter One
FUZZY EDGES
“Is this class ever going to end?”
My best friend, Brooklyn, draped her upper body across her
desk in a dramatic reenactment of Desdemona’s death in
Othello.
She buried her face in a tangle of arms and long black hair
for
effect. It was quite moving. And while I appreciated her
freedom
to express her misgivings about the most boring class since
multi-celled organisms first crawled onto dry land, I
wondered
about her timing.
“Miss Prather,” our Government teacher, Mr. Gonzales, said,
his voice like a sharp crack in the silence of study time.
Brooklyn jerked upright in surprise. She glanced around as
our classmates snickered, either politely into their hands
or more
rudely outright.
“Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”
She turned toward Mr. Gonzales and asked, “Did I say that
out loud?”
The class erupted in laughter as Mr. G’s mouth formed a long
narrow line across his face. As though a miracle from
heaven,
the bell rang and Brooklyn couldn’t scramble out of her seat
fast
enough. She practically sprinted from the room. I followed
at a
slower pace, smiling meekly as I walked past Mr. G’s desk.
Brooklyn stood waiting for me in the hall, her face still
frozen
in surprise.
“That was funny,” I said, tugging her alongside me. She fell
in line as we wound through the crush of students, fighting
our
way to PE. I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t particularly enjoy
having
my many faults and numerous shortcomings put on display for
all to see, so why I would fight to get there was beyond me.
“No, really.” She tucked an arm through mine. “I didn’t mean
to say that out loud.”
I couldn’t help but smile despite the weight on my chest, a
weight that seemed to be endless. “Which is why that was
funny.”
I did that a lot lately. Smiled. It was easier than
explaining
why I wasn’t.
“You don’t get it,” she said. “This is exactly what I’ve
been
talking about. Everything is weird ever since . . . you
know.”
I did know. Ever since Jared Kovach came to town. Ever
since he’d saved my life after a huge green delivery truck
slammed into me. Ever since we’d found out he was the Angel
of Death and he had been sent not to save my life but to
take it.
To tweak the timing. To take me sooner than nature— or a
huge
green delivery truck— had intended.
And ever since I found out I’d been possessed by a demon
when I was six years old.
Still, that wasn’t the worst part of that day all those
years ago.
The worst part was the fact that my parents were gone.
Vanished
in a whirlwind when some guy— we still had no idea who—
opened the gates of hell. And I’d led them straight to it.
The fact
that a demon—Malak-Tuke, to be exact, Lucifer’s second in command—
escaped from his fiery pit and decided to crash at my
place was just the icing on the cake. But I didn’t know any
of
this until two months ago.
I’d been living with my grandparents since the
disappearance,
but my semi- normal existence changed forever when I was
knocked into the street by a skateboarder and hit by that truck.
That near- death experience taught me a valuable lesson:
Never get hit by a huge green delivery truck if I can help
it. But
if I hadn’t, if my life hadn’t almost ended that day, then
Jared
Kovach would not have been sent. And oddly enough, Jared
Kovach
was definitely worth the risk.
The events that followed were both terrifying and life
changing.
I learned that there really was a heaven and a hell. That
there really were angels and demons. That I was a prophet,
the
last prophet in a long line of incredible women, descended
from
a powerful woman named Arabeth. And I’d learned that I had a
demon inside me, that I’d had him inside me for years.
Even Jared had never seen anything like it. Most people
possessed
by evil spirits were lucky to survive. People possessed by
demons— a rarity, from what I’d been told— never survived
more
than a month. Ever. And yet here I stood. As possessed as a
girl
with a demon inside her could be.
And,
yes, things had been weird.
Author Bio:
NYTimes and USA Today Bestselling Author Darynda Jones has
won numerous awards for her work, including a prestigious Golden Heart®, a
Rebecca, two Hold Medallions, a RITA ®, and a Daphne du Maurier, and
she has received stellar reviews from dozens of publications including starred
reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist, and the Library Journal. As a born
storyteller, Darynda grew up spinning tales of dashing damsels and heroes in
distress for any unfortunate soul who happened by, annoying man and beast
alike, and she is ever so grateful for the opportunity to carry on that
tradition. She currently has two series with St. Martin’s Press: The Charley
Davidson Series and the Darklight Trilogy. She lives in the Land of
Enchantment, also known as New Mexico, with her husband of almost 30 years and
two beautiful sons, the Mighty, Mighty Jones Boys. She can be found at www.daryndajones.com.
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