Dragons & Demons is Live!
It’s live, people!
Dragons & Demons features… you guessed it, dragons and demons!
Lots of them…
Kick-butt dragon shifter Mei teams up with inventor and demon hunter Hazel to take on the Director and his band of evil-doers bent on using demon energy to take over the world!
Don’t they know it’s dangerous and unstable to use demon energy? Of course they do, but they don’t care.
It’s up to Mei and Hazel to take on the baddies and make sure we’re safe from the plague of demons that is about to be released into the world.
Click the link to find out more: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08WRZ6V3L
Read on for an excerpt:
The Director appears in the doorway, his usually blank face looking thunderous.
My eyes widen in fear. I’ve never seen him look like this before. Part of me recognizes that this might be his true face, the one he hides from the world with his suave smiles and empty platitudes.
“There’s a demon on the roof,” he snarls. “You need to destroy it.”
“W-what?”
“Damien and the other prisoners escaped. They let a demon out.”
“They were prisoners?”
“Enough,” he snaps. “Just go to the roof. Get rid of the demon.”
I nod shakily.
He disappears again. I let out a breath, then look behind me. The panel isn’t on correctly, so I fix it and then run to the elevator bank and hit roof.
I look around the empty halls. Is it okay to use the elevators? Or should I use the stairs?
The thought of climbing the four flights to ground level and then the twelve to the roof is beyond me. I press the elevator button again. I’m sure it’s fine. Not like I can’t take on a demon or two.
The whole time I’m riding up in the elevator, I’m fidgeting. What if I meet up with Damien and the others? What if they haven’t escaped yet, and I find them somewhere? Everything is on camera. I’ve seen it in Stanley’s office.
I’ll have to pretend to capture them. Which is ridiculous. I’m not a real SIG agent, not like these other people in their fancy suits and aviator glasses. Even Blade, who doesn’t dress like that, but is equally as intimidating when he’s got his agent face on.
I’m just a researcher who knows how to fight one thing. Demons. I hope that’s enough to protect me if I have to make a split-second decision up on the roof.
The doors to the elevator open. It’s not the roof, but a kind of mezzanine floor below the roof. There are agents with guns guarding the door to the roof, but no one seems to be approaching it.
“Miss, you have to go back down. You can’t go out there.” One of the agents is trying to push me back into the elevator.
“You don’t understand,” I say. “The Director sent me up here. I’m going to get rid of the demon.”
The agent looks confused and glances over to another man, who must be his superior officer.
“You’re the chalice?” says the senior agent.
“Yes.”
“Okay, get to it,” he says, waving his hand in the direction of the door to the roof.
I climb the stairs, crunching over shattered glass that’s strewn across the carpet, and open the door, peering out onto the roof. It looks like a bomb hit it. There are broken pieces of furniture, twisted metal, random bits of wood.
At the edge of the roof, standing looking out into the sky as if it can see something, is a large demon. It’s in its human form, and it’s one of the few I’ve seen that’s not completely covered in random metal pieces. It turns when I move further out onto the roof and stares at me with its dark pitiless eyes.
I take a step forward. Do I have to absorb this demon as well? I’m not as scared of it as I used to be, I know how to get rid of the demon energy inside me now. But I’m still feeling shaky from the demons I absorbed in Connor’s lab. The spell web has dimmed my abilities a little—I can feel it lying over my body like an unwelcome second skin. I don’t know how much it will affect my powers.
The demon seems particularly angry, like it’s a fizzy drink bottle filled to the top and about to go pop. I don’t want this angry demon inside me. I already feel dirty, a little worn around the edges, from absorbing all the other demons. This one will just make it worse.
Do I take on the anger of the demon when I absorb them? What happens when I get too much angry demon energy going through me? Will it influence me even more? I don’t want to be any more evil than I already am.
The demon snarls at me, its face twisting unpleasantly. Perhaps it thinks it’s found an easy target?
I reluctantly step forward, trying to decide what to do. Can I scare it away? I look around me. There are no other agents on this level, no one to see what I do. They’re all too afraid of the demon. I give a scream, designed to be a warning to the demon. I don’t want to destroy it. I just want it to go away. The demon cringes back, its face no longer looking so confident. I take a step forward, trying to herd it to the edge of the building. If I can encourage it to jump to the next building over, perhaps it will just seem like it got away and I couldn’t follow it?
Blade would probably have a fit if he knew. He’d say it was dangerous to let a demon go, to let it head off and find new prey. But I just can’t do it. The thought of having another demon inside me right now feels wrong somehow, like it’s not just my mind rejecting the idea, but my body as well.
Is there a limit to how many I can absorb?
This is where a knife like Blade’s would be handy. I could just stab the demon, store it in the knife, and not have to worry. I’m definitely going to start researching how to do that. That’s where I wish I was right now—in the R&R room searching the books, breathing in the cool air-conditioned atmosphere.
The demon is backing up, away from me. Its face is a picture of an agonized demon, and I stop screaming for a moment.
I wave my arms around like I’m at a concert and try to look bigger and scarier than I actually am.
The demon is still uncertain of me, but it’s retreating and is almost at the edge of the building. I scream again, just for effect. I’m not reaching into the deep well of power inside me. I’m just trying to scare it a little. Get it to do what I want it to do.
Taking another step, I will it to run. I scream, this time a slightly different tone. The demon shimmers, and I stop immediately, worried I’m going to accidentally absorb it. The demon backs up some more, then dissolves into its glowing blue form. It hovers in the air in front of me and then zips away, across the divide between this building and the next, keeping low and near to the buildings.
Can they not float wherever they want in their glowing blue form? Maybe this one was weaker than some of the others? It didn’t seem as aggressive. I remember the shattered glass I walked over up the stairs. Maybe the demon was in a bottle? That’s why it seemed weaker than usual?
I shake my head. There’s so much more I need to understand about demons, and I still haven’t found anything useful in the R&R room.
“You let it go,” says a sneering voice behind me.
***
Click the link to find out more: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08WRZ6V3L