Sorceress of Faith OFFICIALLY Released.

Life is good.

She was running, running, running. Marian wished the passages were narrower, twistier, because the thing that chased her was huge and deadly. With each breath putrid air seared her lungs. The cavern's corridors oozed slime.

She stumbled, clutched the plastic ball holding her hamster close. Looking down at her cross-trainer shoes in horror, she saw the laces were untied. She always tied them in perfect double bows.

A vibration hit her back. The monster's long breath. Stitch cramping her side, she used terror for a burst of speed and reached narrow upward stairs. Fresher air, laden with blood instead of poisonous acid, fouled her nostrils. She climbed, thinking the thing behind her could flow up the stairs. It wanted her blood, her guts, her brains.

Bumping from side to side, scraping skin raw, protecting her pet, she jumped up the steps and burst out onto a wide ledge of rock. With agility she didn't know she had, she pivoted, avoiding the edge, hit the cliff face. Leaned into it. Gulping night air, she felt the thing brush past her, and fall screaming.

She couldn't stop herself from looking down. Saw something worse than the huge shattered body of the monster that had hunted her. Her younger brother Andrew lay surrounded by chanting black-robed druids who looked like death personified. Some of the druids held scythes, some gongs, some chimes.

Prone, Andrew was more pale than he'd ever been in life. Shrieking, "Nooooo!" she put the ball between her feet, lifted her arms as if she could call thunder that would set his heart to thumping again, push his blood; lightning that would nail his soul into his body, fire the spark of life.

A wet chuckle came beside her, freezing her blood. Slowly she turned her head to see a cowled figure with gleaming red eyes, a face not quite human but which might have been a man's, once. He opened his mouth wide, and it got larger and larger, ready to swallow her whole. She raised her hands, fingertips arcing blue fire--

Marian Harasta jolted from the dream, covered in clammy sweat. Morning light streamed through the high windows of her garden apartment and she gasped in relief.

Before she could exhale, the chimes sounded, rippling through her nerves and echoing in her mind. Then the gong reverberated, arching her body off the bed. Her vision blurred and distant chanting rushed in her ears. She was bowed for one long moment before she fell back onto the bed, panting.

First the nightmare. Now the sounds. For the past month, dreams and auditory hallucinations had peppered her life – sleeping and waking. She steadied herself with even breathing. She would figure out what was happening to her. She'd had a full physical the week before, and a psychological evaluation, too. And she was perfectly fine.


Thank you for this opportunity.
May you find infinite satisfaction in your writing today.