Chapter One

You’re going to die in two hours.
Not exactly a great conversation starter. How, you ask? On your way home from work, you’ll be in a rush to get home in time to get ready for your big date. So, when you don’t pay attention as you cross the intersection a few miles from here, you get your skull crushed by an oncoming bus.
“That’ll be $53.89. Cash or credit?” The woman whose future or lack of one as it is, I had just predicted, Linda Quine, smiled at me from behind the counter. I returned it without much enthusiasm. I’m not sure what bothered me more, the fact that I wasn’t even considering telling the woman of her impending doom, or that it didn’t bother me that I didn’t want to share with the class. I didn’t use to be like this. There was a time where I would have stopped at nothing to save her life. Not anymore.
“Cash,” I muttered as I forked over the green. Gathering the grocery bags full of my two best friends, Bud and Captain Morgan, I avoided her eyes. Mine would only freak her out anyway. Wonder how long it’ll take until her new boyfriend moves on. Two minutes? Less? Probably wouldn’t matter to Linda, even if she did know, she was sleeping with her supervisor. Life’s going pretty well for Miss Quine at the moment. Her boss is putting her up for a promotion due to her incredible work ethic. Must be good between the sheets.
“Have a great night!” She flashed me a charming grin as she handed over my change. My parting gift to her was a stiff nod, and then I was off, bottles clanging together with each step I took. People gave me strange looks as I walked through the almost deserted parking lot of my small town Wal-Mart. Young woman in her late twenties carrying only liquor. I’ll let you fill in the blanks.
They’re mostly right; I’d be long dead from liver cancer, if someone like me could actually get it. But, no, I wasn’t blessed with that kindness; or rather, it was stolen from me. I’ll never grow old, never feel the cruelty of time, never look back on the years and wonder how they went so quickly. I had an eternity staring me in the face, and I didn’t want it. Give it to someone else, like the cashier girl; she seems to be enjoying her existence.
Besides, if there was such a place as heaven, I was sure she didn’t have the necessary prerequisites. Then again, who did? Certainly not I. I was only able to shame myself into attending church on Christmas, or when I’d done something especially horrible. And there was that whole pesky ‘abomination’ thing. The Catholics frowned upon those who shied away from the holy water.
Okay, that last part was just me feeling sorry for myself, as far as I knew, if you threw the Godly juice on me, nothing would have happen. Probably... Never been interested in a test run with the whole ‘burn like acid’ thing hanging over my head. Call me crazy.
Unlocking the door to my silver 2010 Camaro, I settled myself against the smooth leather interior. I won’t lie. It’s a nice car. Job paid well...very. The tinted windows protected me from the watchful gazes of others, and indulged my need for darkness. It’s my safe haven, houses come and go, but I take the Camaro with me everywhere.
The engine purred to life under me and I basked in the sudden heat coming from the air vents. True, the cold didn’t affect me anymore, but I still felt the change of temperatures on a fundamental level.
Pulling out of the parking lot, I made good time speeding through the misty back streets of Franklin. As the dial approached 110 mph, I turned sharply onto a gravel road, leaving tire imprints. Dense woods surrounded me on both sides of the rocks. Inches past the travelled path is a terrifying drop off, a ravine of sorts. I could practically hear it calling to me, “Drive over me, Tabitha. I offer a slow, painful, and horrible death.”
No, thanks. I was more likely to suddenly wake up and request a Lobotomy. Without anesthetic. There went my appetite.
I hated driving that stretch, but it was unavoidable. Someone like me required solitude, something that couldn’t be found in an apartment in the middle of town. Which made my house somewhat perfect, it was secluded, hard to find, and in the middle of a dark, scary forest.
Making a hard left, the cabin popped out of the scenery. I put it in park as I hit the driveway and practically flew out of the car. The pebbles crunched under the rubber of my tennis shoes, as I shuffled towards the front porch.
It was nothing grand, just a cozy, little log cabin, and the kind you might stay in if you went camping. It had all the necessaries; stove, toilet, shower, bed. I had everything I needed to survive and thrive. Good times.
Pounding up the stairs, I let the thick door slam shut behind me. I turned and slid every lock into place, all eight of them. Wouldn’t do to leave myself defenseless. The place was decorated in a stereotypical lumberjack fashion. Hard wood floor covered the place, no carpet anywhere. It only hid the sounds of intruders. As if, I needed to put a bigger target on my back.
After setting the bags on the tile clad counter, I stood in the kitchen for a while. Just standing. To be honest, it had been a little hard those last few months; the Clan hadn’t called in about any new cases. Which was...strange. The Clan, a council of powerful representatives for each species: vampires, shifters, non-corporeal beings, the list went on and on, were always in need of me.
Prophets were extremely rare, maybe one in every billion. At that time, there were only three Actives in the system. I was one of them. However, something set me apart from the pack. I could foretell on demand.
For the Clan that meant no waiting around for the prophet to fall asleep or for something to click in their minds, sending visions of the event, just constant results. In theory.
Visions took up energy, especially the ones I brought on myself. The longer they lasted or the more severe the message, the more it drained me. Girl has to sleep eventually, much to the Clan’s displeasure.
Unfortunately, my strict control over my abilities also left me vulnerable. Prophets were unpredictable by nature and liable to lose dominion at any moment, leaving their psyche unprotected from the chaos of other’s minds. The more I forced the foreseeing, the faster my natural defenses degraded.
They could be rebuilt and were frequently, but that took time. Time where you lay exposed to any and everything... And I couldn’t rebuild shit if I was in the throes of a vision.
The only way I could explain it was that any person at any given time had roughly one-hundred futures. About a hundred possibilities of what could happen to them in the long or short-term. My armor was like a filter that surrounded my mind, sorting through the mess automatically and keeping it out of my head. It was instinctual; I didn’t have to think about it, like a heartbeat. It just happened...until my shields failed and it didn’t.
One individual was no big deal; I didn’t need my defenses to pick through the potential to find what was relevant. Even two or three was fine if I was conscious and able to sift manually. But then you get a group of people gathered and their combined futures started bombarding me faster than I could handle them. They entered my psyche, sending my mind into a constant state of forecasting. One vision after the other, never stopping. If I spent too long this way, my brain would have beeen irrevocably damaged. My last few days on the earth would have been spent in a vegetative state, no higher brain function.
That was why I lived in the middle of nowhere.
Stretching out my aching limbs, I glanced over at the clock, much to my shock; I’d been standing there for over an hour. Time flies when you’re reveling in self-pity.
Moving stiffly into the living room, I sat down in front of the generously sized TV. The movie I wanted to watch was already in. My options were limited; horror and most thrillers got me excessively worked up to enjoy the show. I’d never been a romance kind of girl, so more or less, that left comedy. That night’s pick; “Miss Congeniality.” The excitement in it was borderline, but after how many times I had seen it, I didn’t expect it to keep me.
I was right, it didn’t.
It was dark. Not the kind of blackness where you can sort of make out your surroundings, total eclipse of the light. The Camaro’s engine purred enthusiastically under me, making me notice that I was driving. The road was completely abandoned from what I could see, which was just the dotted yellow line directly to my left. My speed was exceedingly fast, even for me, which could have had an impact of the whole ‘pitch black’ thing. It was an obscurity that I’d never known. True, I had always been the one to stick to shadows but this was different, from the shadows, I could still glimpse the light. Here there was none, nothing but endless night. My own personal Hell.
I clenched the steering wheel impossibly tighter, the tendons in my hands standing out in shocking contrast to the Cimmerian shade all around me. I pushed my foot down on the accelerator as hard as I could, barely registering the feeling of being smashed back against the seat.
I needed to get out of there.
“Stop! Turn back!” It was a faint whisper on the wind; I’d never heard the voice before. My head felt...so stuffed. Like cotton had been shoved into my ears. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
The voices continued, some from people I knew, some not. All disturbing and just as determined. Everyone was talking to me, screaming at me. ‘Do this, do that, do something!’
“Get out of my head!” A shriek escaped my throat; the voice was so mangled I barely understood it to be my own. The car screeched to a stop, I almost let out a sigh of relief. The road had ended.
I vaulted from the car; I couldn’t get away fast enough. In front of me was a valley of sorts, closed in my mountain ranges. The meadow itself was about the size of a football field. Grassy, quiet, deserted....
“Why are you here? Turn back, damn it, turn back!” The voice was beautiful, rhythmic, it rang to my senses and made me want to listen, to do whatever it said. The tone was furious, with a slight edge of fear. I looked around wildly for the source. Nothing. Just like the others.
Suddenly, the valley wasn’t empty, twenty yards in front of me a huge figure loomed, frozen. It looked to be a cross, a fifteen foot cross, something that might go atop a chapel. The crucifix was made of metal weaved to form intricate designs it was breath taking. But there was something else... I craned my neck in a desperate attempted to make out the cross better.
My eyes widened and a gasp of horror forced its way past my lip. Someone was on it. No, someone was nailed to the cross. It was like my vision zoomed in and I could see everything. Every. Excruciating. Detail.
Blood dripped lazily from the woman’s wounds, meaning she’d been up there a while. Her body was covered in welts and deep cuts, like someone had whipped her within an inch of her life. She looked thin, too thin, and her skin had a grey quality to it. I swallowed back bile. She had to be dead. No one could with stand this kind of abuse. It wasn’t possible. Wasn’t right.
That’s when I noticed the slight rise and fall of her chest. She was breathing.
“Tread very carefully, my child. Don’t play with Death.”

I jerked forcefully, almost falling from my sitting position on the coach. That would have felt good. Trying to shake off what I had seen in the dream, I pulled the comforter closer to me. My whole body was shivering from the below freezing temperature. It seemed like it had dropped thirty degrees since the time I’d falling asleep. I could see my breath.
A loud pop sound came from the kitchen, my head snapped towards the noise. Rising carefully from the couch, I moved with lethal silence across the wood floors. I cursed myself for falling asleep in a spot devoid of weapons. Not likely, to work against something I can’t run from, anyway.
A woman was standing in front of my dishwasher. Her flame red hair looked truly alive, rising up and burning through anything in its path. Next to her paper white skin, it stood out like a neon sign.
“I know you didn’t pull a ‘break-and-enter’ in my house, because if you did, your ass is mine. I’ll hang it above the mantle, ward off anymore unwanted visitors.”
She turned to face me. Her eyes were such a bright shade of green that it seemed to glow with the intensity of an electronic alarm clock. “You would do well not to threaten me, Tabitha Sharlet Brennan.” Her voice was like ice, frozen and void of emotion. Someone like her could’ve mutilated my corpse without blinking. Everything about her was detached; she simply had nothing that translated to this dimension, as if she was a hologram. It was a wonder she was able to hold a corporeal form.
I cocked an eyebrow, “Are we dropping names now? Yours was pretty impressive, don’t know if I can top it.”
“Your sarcasm hides confusion and frustration.” Her expression didn’t change, but I got the feeling she was chiding me, as if you would a child.
“Ouch.”
“I have come to warn you-”
I rolled my eyes, “Thanks, Lady. But really-” I gestured to myself- “I think I’ve got it covered. Nothing really catches me off guard anymore, feel me?”
She showed her first expression of the evening, disbelief. “You claim to be an all knowing being?” That caused me to hesitate. I didn’t pretend to know everything. No one did, that was the whole point of ‘free will’, the power to change your own future past what anyone expects of you. But I did see more than most.
“Your fate hangs in the balance, along with many others. You will have no influence on the upcoming events. Outside the realms of normal, of course.” The woman continued.
“...What are you smoking, chick?”
She tapped her foot tapped in a dead giveaway of impatience. “This is where I take my leave.” She paused as if considering something, she met my eyes and a burst of raw power shot through me. I winced from the uncomfortable sensation.
“Be wary, Tabitha. Take nothing at face value. The world is at a vital turning point. A miss step and your end could mean chaos.” I opened my mouth to ask her ‘what the hell are you talking about?’ A blink of the eyes later she was gone. No fading, no exiting stage left, just...gone. As if she’d never really been there in the first place.


“Remember, you can’t save someone who’s already Dead.”

Her voice rang out in my mind, clear as a bell, though her body was nowhere near. I shuddered as her words sunk in. One thing was for sure, whoever she was; she had some mega skill under her belt. This meant deep shit for me.

Cardinal rule; don’t get involved with an Ancient.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 21.01.2012

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Widmung:
I dedicate this book to Erin Baker. Thanks for never ignoring my late night calls when I needed book advice!