This is the first chapter from my latest project in the Kayla McQueen series.  This will only be available on Kindle or Hard-copy later in 2018.  Please let me know what you think!

One:

Perched on an old, gritty rooftop, I watched as my beautiful, sinful city of the dead burned in the night. Fires swept through the district closest to the French Quarter. A stone's throw from some of the wealthiest families, the violence had only spread. It was the end of September, my mind flashed through all the vague memories I did retain from the previous year. Still, so much had been intertwined with a human, Jon Divichi.

To put down a powerful rogue sorceress, I had turned to a being that dwelled in the shadows. Her abyssal magic had been able to help me counter Jaden. With all things come a price and my price had been the memories of this former human lover of mine. You think your life is fucked up? Try knowing you have done it more than once, but in your mind, you cannot recall ever giving yourself to a man! It tends to spark a chicken and the egg debate in my mind profusely. Am I a virgin again, since I will never remember anything I ever did?

My petty thoughts are cut short, I sensed the shift in the space next to me. This told me that Kimi, Seraphina's trusted right hand and my permanent shadow, was back.

"What now?" I growled at her. I did not bother to look over at her, if she wanted me dead, then she could try. The emptiness of my heart and the frigid powers of my magic had numbed me beyond caring. I wore a long black trench coat, not because I got cold anymore these days, but more to hide weapons. My long raven hair flapped freely with the wind of the night, with the wind came the rising scent of cinder.

"She wishes for me to inform you, that this is just a smokescreen. The chaos magic users are actually planning to make their escape in the confusion tonight."

"Where are they going? How many of them?"

"Milady requests that you allow her to speak to you."

I dispersed into the air of the chilly September night and I ignored Kimi. She hated me and loathed playing middle bitch between Seraphina and myself. In just three months, my mastery of the shadowy magic known as abyss, was now uncanny. I could tell that Kimi was intimidated around me, I had seen her magic many times, but it lacked the same power of mine. Her dispersion seemed to cost her energy, but for me, it was as natural as breathing. In fact, I spent more and more of my time dispersed in the darkness, rather than in solid form.

My best friend was now the apex alpha of the New Orleans pack. Sally tried to keep up with me, but we had not seen each other in over two months now. She texted one of my burner phones every couple of days, but that was about all the time a new apex had. She was busy trying to put out the fires. The wolves were entrenched throughout the outskirts of the city, and deep into the swamp lands. Vampires were swarming like locusts and now the dead things roamed the streets of New Orleans.

The coven was fractured, Joan McQueen, my grandma, refused to take them back. They betrayed her and helped unleash this new hell on earth. Joan had been welcomed into my mom's house. To think, it only took a zombie and vampire apocalypse to bring two stubborn McQueen's back together. They had spent nearly two decades in a state of cold war with each other. Now their interests were aligned and they both felt responsible for what I had become. Joan was, after all, the one who took me to meet Seraphina. From what little I have gathered, Joan was not so completely infused with abyss, not like me. She had considered Seraphina as a sort of mentor.

I felt Kimi struggling to follow me, as I slunk through the shadows of the night. I coiled around allies in less time than even my dyamphyr speed could have ever managed. Being less than physical had its perks, despite all that bargain had cost me. I could feel the abyssal powers swirling deeper and deeper inside, where my magic use to reside. It had not consumed my ice magic, nor my glamor, so I was beginning to suspect that Seraphina stripped my fire magic from me.

The world had turned visceral and a maelstrom churned inside me. All that I once was, was based on the fantasy of good and evil. Now, I know, nothing in this world is without shadows. Nothing can hide from the darkness, nor does the darkness forge evil. For the first time in my life, my question to myself was not, "am I evil." My question had evolved. "Am I just?" For three months, I have tracked and killed witches and even voodoo practitioners. The cancer of the chaos magic was attempting to spread through my world. I have done terrible things to suppress its growth, but I have done no wrong.

I felt the chaos rune magic ignite and materialized short of a warded sector of town. I cursed in a string and I studied the burning light runes. No vulnerability to my shadow form. This would not be like the last time I just carefully slipped through a slight imperfection in a ward. This time they had something that could repel me.

I drew one of my cold iron and silver forged kuna (a Japanese throwing knife.) I slashed my right palm open and I began to chant in the abyssal tongue, it had become second nature to me now. I began to circle the warded section, it took me the better part of an hour to complete the circuit. The section was south-east of the French Quarter, basically, the opposite direction of all the fireworks tonight.

I smashed my bloody palm into the ground and I roared the final word in Latin, "Incendia!"

Shadows and abyssal fire spread around the outer boarders for miles in all directions—cutting them all off from their vampire support. Anything undead, or hostile to the abyss would be consumed in shadow flames, sent straight the that crazy bitch Seraphina. I might not like her, but I would let her amuse herself on anyone other than me—so long as they deserved it!

"Brilliant spell, I would ask if you invented it, but we both know the answer to that question."

I grit my teeth and I felt my fangs descend from my gums. I spun and shot Kimi a dark look, promising her everything but a swift death.

"If you want to make yourself useful, then you sit on this location and pick off any stragglers. Make sure they cannot escape my spell—nor any vampires reach them."

Kimi went silent and her eyes were unfocused for a moment, I knew that look. Seraphina was communicating with her.

"Milady says that I can assist, if you reap two souls for her."

I growled a guttural nose and I shot her a glowing grey-violet-eyed glare. My grey eyes had begun to show veins of purples in them now, spun throughout each eye. I could not ask what it meant, that would cost me something else. I was changing, still changing, still becoming something else.

"Tell that bitch to shove her offer. If you are not going to help, then go back to that shadow temple you love so fucking much!"

My words were visceral and my cold anger tore through the chilly air of the night. Kimi shivered, ever so slightly.

"I will not speak to Milady like that!" Kimi's indignation was clear in her tone, a tone that suited itself to medieval England, or parts of western Europe.

"Kill bad shit, or go home, those are my orders. I will not be bargaining with Seraphina again!"

Kimi sighed, and she dispersed into the night. I growled in annoyance, then I dispersed once more, letting the shadows reclaim my physical form.

****

I traveled the five-and-a-half-mile trek via the shadows of the night. I came up to the cottage style house that Bella of London now occupied. I noticed that there were still two beta wolf centuries posted at the front and back of her house. The front guard was a little bit startled—to say the least—when a raven-haired girl just appeared on his watch. He swung the sawed-off shotgun in my direction for half a second, before my dyamphyr scent reached his nose. I waved casually with my left hand and shot him a sly smile.

"As you were chief. Nothing to see here."

He grunted something undecipherable and slumped back against the wood panes of the side of the house. Bella opened her door and she nodded sagely to me. She had a small smile playing on her perfectly pink and lush lips. Her auburn-red hair was like dark fire in the night's light. Her pale eyes rest on me with something akin to concern and curiosity mixed in equal dose.

"Little dyamphyr, I had hopped you might come by sooner than this."

Her tone was lightly scolding and just a twinge cross with me. I shrugged a little and I masked my tiny guilt that rest in my belly now. I was a being of the shadows now, not a being that did not feel. I felt plenty, but it did little to help me fix the brokenness with my city. If only my emotions could do more for me, I might allow them more room in my heart. Ever since I was changed, I have not felt right with my old emotions—my old self. This Kayla was forged for war. This Kayla was a weapon of the highest order. I had to stay on task at all times.

I followed Bella into her comfortable and tastefully decorated modest home. No one would guess that Bella was anything but a young spinster. Her taste ran towards the casual, quant and adorable. She had a collection of plush animals of great and small. She was hardly living up to the bloody and leather clad themed vamp den that many associated with her kind.

Bella took a seat across her small square center table and gestured for me to seat myself on her pale pink love seat.

"Tell me, what has brought you to my door young dyamphyr?"

I cleared my throat and began to recap my night.

"...So, you have chased these magic users and witches and pinned them down? Sounds like you are asking for backup. Are my ears deceiving me young dyamphyr?"

I grit my teeth and nodded to her.

"Bella, I get it, you think I should have curled up on your couch and slowly rocked back and forth for the past few months. I am not sorry that I have been busy trying to fix this mess that each sect has collectively created for us in New Orleans."

Bella sighed and said, "I understand the need to act Kayla. I just expected, you to keep me and your family looped in more! I thought we had established more trust by now!"

I waved my hand around in a fast circuit.

"I am here now, aren't I?!"

"Only, because you know you have bitten off too much!"

Bella rebutted my argument with a fierceness I had not seen in her, except when she kicked my ass in a mock-duel three months ago. Sometimes, you forget that beneath the beautiful spinster redhead, is a two-thousand-year-old master class vampire.

"Bella, I have just been very busy. Not to mention, in constant danger. It is not a lack of trust, more me trying to keep my shit form hitting your doorstep."

Bella shook her head and she looked disappointed.

"You're running from your own humanity Kayla McQueen. Part of you was rent from you that night. You are hiding and running from everything that reminds you of your past self. That's not even close to covering matters involving Jon..."

I cut her off and said, "Can we not talk about that human again!"

Bella sighed and shook her head.

"I will help you, if only to save you from yourself. Tell me what you need of me little dyamphyr."

I nodded and cleared my throat again.

"Thanks Bella, I really do appreciate it..."