Excerpt: A Flame in the Dark

PROLOGUE

When people look at me, their first thought is not normally “protector.” In fact, their first thought is generally something along the lines of “Who is that weird, short girl?” Mind you, that’s only the people I want to notice me. I’m very good at hiding, blending in with crowds like any professional in my field. It’s sort of a matter of life and death. Maybe I should back up.

Hi. My name is Samantha Wringler, Sam for short. It used to be something else, but I’ll get into that later. I’m eighteen, although all of my ID’s say I’m in my twenties. I have several aliases, but the Sam identity is the one I use for all legal intents and purposes.

I’m short, and I own it. I change my hair almost as often as I change my clothes and my eyes are usually covered by one color contact lens or another, but if you took away my wigs, hair dye, and contacts, I’d have dirty blonde hair and grey eyes. My skin is pretty pale, and I don’t tan very well. That’s okay. Being pale helps me blend in with certain circles.

I was born Elizabeth Grace Hill, daughter of Chester Hill and Serena Grant-Hill, a lawyer and a doctor respectively, who were the perfect picture of suburban wealth. We lived the good life. I went to the best school in Westchester County, New York. My parents ran in the type of social circle everyone else longed to be a part of, surrounded by rich yuppies who spent their time trying to prove how much better than everyone else they were. No one knew my parents had infiltrated this circle deliberately, because not only did it provide the perfect cover identities, but it made them privy to idle gossip that often proved to be much more. We were a family of slayers. Mom’s family legacy went back two centuries, and dad’s went back four. The joining of slayer lines seemed logical, almost inevitable. The other slayers admired both parts of my family for surviving so long. Nothing could keep a Grant or a Hill down.

Two days shy of my thirteenth birthday, my grandparents, parents, two uncles, three aunts, nine cousins, older brother, and I were ambushed by vampires, devil worshippers, warlocks, and worst of all, corrupt slayers. Well, actually, my family was ambushed. I was kidnapped and used as bait. Corrupts are slayers who used to defend the greater good like my family but turned their back on this and now worked for their own agenda. There were many more corrupt slayers than good ones, and the corrupts liked to kill off those who refused to turn to their side.

The entire family should have been killed. There were so many bad guys and so few of us, the chances of our survival were slim. My grandparents should have been off limits. Slayers who live past fifty are generally not ambushed. That’s considered disrespectful after they’ve survived so long. The bad guys wanted to wipe all of us off the planet.

My brother Henry was a necromancer. When the corrupts slashed his throat, he used his own blood to created a necromantic circle of protection called a shield of souls around me before he died. His life force became a shield and as the others died, they joined it. This kept me safe. I couldn’t be touched, but I also couldn’t move. I was the youngest, and since thirteen is ranking age in New York, I wasn’t quite old enough to be considered a fully trained slayer. Since I spent my entire life training, that’s kind of stupid, but I digress. Anyway, I guess Henry figured I needed the most protection, but part of me hated Henry for it. I had to watch my entire family get slaughtered, one by one, unable to help any of them, and unable to die with them.

Don’t get me wrong. Dying wasn’t on my agenda, and it’s still not. I just wanted to be able to do something. My father was dismembered. My grandparents were sliced in half. My uncles both had their throats slashed. My aunts each had her heart torn out of her body. My cousins died in various ways, each more horrific than the former. My mother, the last to die and by far the fiercest of the slayers present, was decapitated in front of me and I watched her head roll across the ground and land at my feet. Her eyes stared blankly up at me. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t make a sound.

I collapsed, and when I awoke, the bad guys were gone and so were the bodies of my family members. The woods were sunny, peaceful and quiet, as if the battle had never happened. I wanted so badly to believe it had been a nightmare. The circle of protection around me was gone. I was free to go wherever I pleased, but it took me four tries to finally make my feet work.

I went home, because I didn’t know where else to go. The house was empty, left exactly as it had been when we’d run to the woods. No one had come home, no one had slept in the beds, no one had cleaned the dirty dishes in the sink. It wasn’t a dream. They weren’t coming home ever again. I knew I would never be safe in Westchester County again. My entire family was dead.

Not sure who to trust because corrupts pop up hidden among the trusted slayers more often than we like to admit, I decided not to seek help from them. I didn’t take any of my things with me. Elizabeth Hill was dead. She didn’t need her belongings. Material things meant anything. The only thing I needed was my family, and they were gone forever.

I decided to take a few things I hoped would go unnoticed which had not been mine. My mother’s lucky silver tipped stake, my father’s favorite sword, and Henry’s daggers were among the few items I kept. I also took all of the cash we kept hidden in a safe in the basement for emergencies and a single photograph of my entire family, safe, happy, and alive at Henry’s last birthday party. He had turned sixteen.

I’d taken those few items and the clothes on my back and I’d run, as fast and far as I could manage. I left New York for a while, because I couldn’t risk being there while people still remembered me and might go looking for me. Growing up as a slayer, I knew how to get documentation of my new identity quickly and cheap, and I knew how to take care of myself. I finally settled down in Savannah, Georgia, a place so overcrowded with supernatural people I knew no one would notice me. It was the last place anyone would look for me, and I figured I’d be safe there for a while. I began creating a paper trail for Samantha Wringler, making sure the identity seemed as legitimate as possible.

Five years later, I’ve decided it’s time to go back to New York. I’m sick and tired of the south, so now I’m going to face the big bad world I left behind. It’s time to make things right and make sure the people who killed my family can’t hurt anyone else. I’m not a scared little girl anymore. I’m ready. At least, I hope I am.