image purchased from CanStock
The paranormal, first of The Hemstreet Witches series, due out the end of May or first of June is not my first foray into the world of the unknown. In 2002, I wrote Sky Daughter, set in Idaho. The premise of it and the one that came out in 2014, Diablo Canyon, is that we don't know all that is on earth. The following is an excerpt from Diablo Canyon when humans come up against something they aren't prepared to admit exists, let alone know how to fight.
><><
The obstacle in
the middle of the road at first made no sense to her. It was at the turnoff to
the ranch and looked like an enormous bear, a bear with only a few patches of
fur. There had been stories from her childhood of a naked bear monster. The
stories connected to Devil’s Tower where a huge, almost mystical bear’s claws had
formed the grooves in the tower.
She braked the
truck to a standstill, sure what was coming toward her had to be her
imagination. She blinked hard. It didn’t go away. It was now only about twenty
feet from her truck. She couldn’t back up fast enough to avoid it and sat
praying it was a mirage.
Then she saw
the dust from their road and knew the truck, driving recklessly fast, had to be
Pace. She couldn’t let that bear attack him. She blared her horn, to alert Pace
to what she was seeing.
He had to have
seen it, but he kept coming without any attempt to brake until he careened
right into the bear, sending it sprawling and causing his own truck to slam to
an abrupt stop. Pace leaped out, with the 30.06 up to his shoulder, as he shot
the bear. It didn’t drop.
“God,” she
screamed, “please not him, don’t take him.”
It was then she
became aware another vehicle had come to an abrupt halt and a beautiful woman
was running toward the bear. Was she out of her mind? The woman was screaming
something she couldn’t understand, but the bear responded by turning toward
her.
The woman
leaped in the air, faster and higher than any human should have been able and
slammed out with her right leg, hard against the side of the bear’s head
causing it to stagger back. The bear turned toward the woman as she danced away
smiling and again landed a kick to the bear’s head.
Myra saw what she was trying to do. She was
drawing it away from her and Pace-- proving an annoyance-- if she wasn’t
actually hurting it. It danced up onto its hind feet, batting at her. She
nimbly avoided its paws as she landed another hard kick. Nothing could be real.
It had to be an aberration, only it wasn’t.
A fourth
vehicle slammed to a halt, with a man leaping out. Dirk Langston threw a rifle
to his shoulder. “Girl, get away from it!” he yelled. The woman looked toward
him, and this time leaped away from the bear.
Dirk began
firing as she realized Pace was again doing. The bear yowled with pain,
dropping to all fours. It seemed confused as to whom it should attack. Turning
from enemy to enemy, more bullets struck it. Slowly it collapsed to the roadway
and lay in a heap that seemed to dissolve before her eyes.
Myra got out of her truck running to Pace. A
wave of gratitude surged through her-- so strong, she nearly fainted as she saw
him stalking toward her, strong and not harmed. In an instant, he had her in
his arms. “Are you all right?” he asked as she tightened her arms around him.
Not letting go of her, he turned to look at Dirk. "What the hell was that?"
