Urban Fantasy
Date Published: 05-12-2022
Her special abilities can save lives, but so can they kill.
Rovena Silvex has hunted and eliminated dozens of demons throughout the ten
years since her initiation as a hunter. Possessing supernatural skills only
makes her job a lot easier.
When she’s asked to visit the county morgue to look over a deceased
victim and find out what demon killed him, the body rising from the dead is
the last thing she expects.
Now Rovena is stuck with a walking corpse and no answers as to how he
managed to return to the world of the living. However, the victim has
changed and the more time she spends with him, the more she realizes that
what crossed over might not have been the soul of the dead man but something
much worse.
Complications arise when her new assignment is targeted by demons hell-bent
on making sure he stays dead for good.
Killing demons has always been a piece of cake. Keeping one alive however,
is a whole new ballgame for her. If she fails, she risks setting in motion a
war between heaven and hell. But if she succeeds, she could trap a powerful
Lord in a world he doesn’t belong in, forever.
EXCERPT
Rovena reached out again, hoping more contact would provide more insight. It didn’t happen often, but sometimes she got another glimpse into the victim’s life when she prodded further. It was the only tool she could make good use of now, and she was desperate enough for answers to try again. Even if reliving his death was the last thing she wanted to do. Or see.
She extended her fingers, dreading touching the cold skin but determined to do it just the same.
A cool breeze behind her ceased her progress. She froze with her fingers midway to their destination as goosebumps broke across her skin. She whirled around, expecting to find someone or something standing there.
The space behind her was empty.
Tiny tremors pulsated across her palms. Not the usual response when a demon was nearby but an alarm that warned her something otherworldly was at work.
Something otherworldly that she couldn’t envision.
Thank the heavens for her built-in danger detector. Not many in her field were blessed with the same, and hers always came in handy, even if she couldn’t always find what hunted in the shadows.
The inability to see what had momentarily entered the room suggested it wasn’t a demon. But whatever it was had moved on as quickly as it appeared.
She turned back to the corpse in front of her and nearly jumped out of her skin.
His eyes were wide open and staring right at her.
What the actual fuck.
Rovena had seen some crazy shit in her life, but this was bizarre even for her.
Fast as a cobra, he struck, aiming for her throat. She had no time to react before his hand closed around her windpipe. Glowing red eyes glared up at her while long, lean fingers tightened dangerously around her neck. The man forced her back as he sat up and slid off the gurney. The blanket covering the lower half of his body fluttered to the floor and pooled at his feet. He stepped over it as he pushed her toward the wall behind her, his grip narrowing as he moved.
#2
Pushing his shoulders slightly back, he stood with his spine erect, balancing his weight between his feet.
He didn’t murder people, but he wasn’t against slaying killers.
The pair ran at him simultaneously. Limited space prompted him to move sooner than he would have liked, and he swerved out of the way. Working with the momentum, he raised the weapon and swiped.
The first individual dodged the swing, but the second stepped right into the path of his downward stroke. The bladed sliced through skin and muscle, stopping as it hit bone.
A cry left the man’s mouth. Lowering his head to where the blade rested inches from the clavicle, he wrenched himself free with a sickening squelching noise. Blood poured from the wound as the arm split from the rest of the torso, falling to one side and leaving a hollow cavity the size of Luis’s fist.
The man didn’t plummet to the floor but reached across and tugged on the sagging arm, popping it back in place with one quick jerk of his shoulder. Skin mended instantly, stitching together as if Luis’s sword hadn’t just severed it at the joint.
Luis’s stomach contracted. Something akin to fear flushed through him.
The blow should’ve killed the man. At the very least, incapacitate him.
Jesus, what the hell am I dealing with?
Movement in his peripheral drew his attention to a second robed figure rushing at him. He prepared for combat, raising the pommel—and then the world around him shifted an inch to the right.
Luis blinked, trying to make sense of what happened when a noise broke through the silence. He winced as a screech tore across the room, the high-pitched squeal causing his knees to give way.
#3
Khetan sat stiffly beside the grating woman, his fingers digging into the cushioned seat on either side of his outer thighs as she drove across buzzing streets like a bat out of hell.
“Move out of the way, asshole.” She slapped on the car’s horn and raised her middle finger in a gesture he could only postulate as obscene as they passed the other vehicle.
The woman was harebrained—a precarious daredevil of the worst kind.
Just how had he ended up in this predicament?
This scenario was nothing like he envisioned his first visit to the surface would be. After going incorporeal, he’d caught a faint trace of the pest that had stolen Heaven’s Eye, and he followed it dutifully through the barriers and to the surface. But unfortunately, he lost the scent at what he assumed to be a funeral parlor. There, the smell of death saturated the air, and it hindered his chase before it could even start.
Khetan was unsure where things went wrong. He found a vessel to utilize almost immediately, which allowed him to mask his scent, but by the time he realized the body wasn’t alone, it was too late. He had been drawn to the form lying supine on the cold, metallic surface and sped to it without any thoughts as to what consequences that would bring. Instead, he opened his new human eyes to find the most discordant woman he had ever encountered present.
A hindrance to my dealings, she is.
He knew better than to presume her ignorant of the worlds of good and evil. She seemed quite aware that both existed though unaware of who or what he was.
Khetan was unsure if this was a good or bad thing.
However, if she was as careless in everything else as she was in operating a four-wheeled vehicle, he didn’t expect anything but trouble from her. The woman maneuvered the car as if she had spare lives and didn’t care if she lost one along the way.
He wasn’t yet ready to leave, not when he’d just arrived.
Demons destroyed on the surface returned to the pits of the Underworld. The downside of that was that they could no longer breach the world of the living. If something were to happen to him now, he would be carried off to his domain. The mission would become null.
He glanced down at the belt pressed against his chest. Would it keep him safe if the madwoman collided with another vehicle?
About the Author
Kristy Centeno loves to spin tales of creatures that go bump in the night,
with a sprinkle of romance to top them off. Her passion for writing stems
from a lifelong enjoyment of reading and the pleasure derived from the
magical worlds created by authors like her. She prefers her female leads
strong, independent, and stubborn who will stop at nothing to save their
loved ones and protect those they care for.
Kristy currently resides in Pennsylvania with her five kids, a quartet of
noisy parakeets, and a spoiled puppy. When she’s not working or
writing, she juggles her free time between raising a handful of minions and
pursuing other career goals.
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