Excerpt: Ha ha, what, I'm supposed to come up with a title, really?

Tess gritted her teeth, feeling a faint sense of dread. "So I wandered around in the rain without getting killed," she snapped, " and I've got a...bite from - a mark on my neck. But you still haven't told me, and I need to know. What am I?"

The last words came out in a rush, angrily, and she wrapped her arms more tightly around herself, dreading the inevitable, but somehow knowing before he even spoke the words he was finally going to say.

"Well, " he replied, reluctantly. "Assuming the old stories are correct, and all things considered, it's a safe bet they are, according to the Fanwal and the Artelads, and the stories of half a dozen other races who've also passed through the Gate over the millenia; according to all of them, you....you would be the harbinger of doom."