Excerpt: Soulseer

There was no sun. There were only streetlights that mocked the moon in shape and brightness. They cast their light on concrete and glass and the smooth grey stones of streets that were still damp from a late night rain. Soon, the sun would rise, warming the earth and taking back the rain, but that was hours away yet. It was still early, still dark, and the rainwater rested, beaded on the storefront glass and tranquil in cold black puddles. The shallow pools glistened, reflecting another world where streetlights really were little moons and magic came as easily as air.

The real moon shone above, hazy in a sea of clouds that swept steadily by as though they felt the energy of the night. The goddess Neith had stirred. It was no time for stillness.

Beneath moon and streetlights, an outsider wandered, walking shadow quiet through the streets of Bright. She had the symbol of Neith at her throat and the blood of the goddess Ishtar in her veins. Sedva blood. Vampire blood.

She drew neither attention nor suspicion from the humans she passed. As far as they were concerned, she was one of them; nothing different, dangerous or scary. She looked human enough for the purpose. Her skin was pale but not too pale and her hair was plain chocolate brown; long straight and unremarkable. Only her fangs and the unusual brightness of her eyes marked her for anything other than human, but her fangs were blessedly small and eyes are easy to shield. If she was careful, she could walk through a crowd without turning the head or catching the eye of anyone. If she was really careful, she could be invisible.

She was invisible enough now, keeping to the darkness and pulling its weight around her like a cloak. It was a subtle magic, a wielding of shadow and shifting of light. It was the only magic she had any control over, and it even that was slight.

Some priestess she would turn out to be. She could slip into the shadows and become nothing or close to nothing. It seemed a joke of the gods that her greatest skill was in being overlooked.

She tugged the hood of her sweater low to shield her face and took her time, watching, waiting. She had been called, not by the strange energy of the morning, but by the half shadow of magic she called her gift. This was her real magic, her god gift, though right now, it seemed more of an annoyance than anything else.