Excerpt: Summer Shudder (?)

PROLOGUE

A seemingly glowing ebony-stained oaken door opened minutely; mutely, a diminutive figure entering the elegant executive office. Removing her hood, the woman’s delicate blonde hair and blue eyes—the dream of Nazi Germany—appeared shyly, though no eye was poised to view it.
“And what, may I ask, do you claim to have found for me?” A voice resounded from beyond the back of large, dark leather desk chair, pointed so that the sitter might view the winter world beyond his window so near to summer days.
“If you please, sir,” the woman’s voice, almost surprisingly petite to her figure, rang out in nervous airs as she took a timid step forward, “I have knowledge that two—perhaps three—of these… ‘subjects’… you have asked for will be in a house on a small island off of the coast of Southern California in a matter of days…”
“Splendid,” the man, his deep mahogany suit perfectly crisp as if ironed around his body, stood, arms raised in a jubilant fashion, before turning to his visitor, eyes of cold silver focusing on the small form. “Thank you for your time, madam, and your information—see my secretary on your way out; tell her I said three hundred!”
“I feel I must warn you, sir,” the woman’s unobtrusive voice held a firm chill as she continued, “the powers of Night and Demons is more than you could sufficiently conclude, even with your experience and intellect.”
The man laughed, a cold, malevolent sound which reverberated throughout the elegant, black-market-décor filled room. “My dear, I fear neither darkness nor the devil—my faith is too strong that any such evil could defeat me.”
“I would not be so arrogant, sir,” the woman continued in the same harsh tone. “The night is not to be underestimated, nor is the power of an enraged demon in a mystical host.”
The man laughed again, his hand on the woman’s shoulder leading her towards the door. “Thank you, again, my dear. Tell the secretary, three hundred.”
The door closed behind the woman as her hood was once again raised to her head, her ominous warning remaining in the den of secrecy and so-called scientific research behind her…