TJ Michaels

Today’s subject is appropriate for Halloween: Horror and Scary Scene. Enjoy this excerpt from one of my favorite books from the Vampire Council of Ethics series. Be sure to check out the links to all of the other fourteen authors participating in this week’s spooktacular Snippet Saturday!

Carin’s eyes filled with tears and a strange melancholy stole over her like she’d never be back here again. She missed her house already and she hadn’t even gone anywhere yet. Oh for goodness sake, she grumbled to herself. Emotionally attached to a building? Yep, she definitely needed to get out more.

Shaking off the strange weight settling on her shoulders, Carin pulled on her sneakers and slipped her house key into her pants pocket. She grabbed the duffel, stuffed her purse inside it and snatched up the directions Bix had left for her on the coffee table. With one final look around, she stepped into the balmy night and shivered. It wasn’t particularly cold out but the army of goose bumps marching over her arms wriggled under her skin and left a marked chill behind. Carin stepped back inside to grab a light down jacket anyway. It was time to go. Arms tucked into the sleeves of her coat, she slid the deadbolt home and didn’t look back.

Clouds had drifted over the moon. A chill wind rose and sent a small torrent of dried leaves across the lawn. It felt like a storm was coming.

Her sneakers made no sound as she trotted down the steps and made a beeline for her car parked in the driveway. She clicked the unlock button on her car key fob, then looked warily up at the streetlamps illuminating her driveway and half of her block. Only…they weren’t illuminating. Every single one of them was out and it was pitch black in front of her house. The hairs on the back of her neck danced wildly. Someone was out here. Her fingers had just tightened on the handle of the unlocked car door when a big hand shot out and struck her on the side of the head.

She went down in a heap and landed with a harsh thud flat on her stomach. It knocked the wind from her lungs but she wasn’t out. Not by a long shot. Nobody got away with cold cocking her in the side of the head. She felt something both icy and hot rush across her back, but she ignored it and rolled over to face her assailant.

A strange face with a malevolent grin loomed over hers. A fanged grin? What the hell?

The stranger lowered his mouth to her neck. A gag caught in her throat from just a whiff of his rancid breath. Yuck! It reminded her of old rotting pork. She tried to use her arms to push him back and stretch away from him, but he was too strong. Fine, she might not be a vampire, but she was no weakling. She bent her knees and pulled her legs close to her chest, creating an effective barrier between her and fang boy. Kicking with all her might, her legs sent the man flying backward. He landed in the rose bushes lining the side of the driveway. Thankful she lifted heavy weights frequently, she rolled to her knees and was on her feet in a boxing stance, ready to get it on.

Three men approached out of the darkness. One of them she recognized.

“Aleth? What the hell is going on?”

“Hello, Dr. Carinian,” Aleth Sidheon droned, sounding bored with the whole business. “These are some friends of mine. It appears you’ve been snooping into other people’s research. We can’t have that, now can we?”

Her back was on fire where something wet seeped through her jacket. Her knees trembled as she fought for consciousness, but she had to know
what this was all about.

“Snooping into what?” she asked with much more gumption than she felt. The two men flanked her now, and the one she’d kicked into the rose bush made his way back to their little party with several thorns sticking out of his face. He didn’t look happy at all. They were all armed with wicked-looking bowie knives, moving around her until they formed a perfect circle.

How the hell had Sidheon figured out she’d nicked some of his specimens? She cleared her mind and thoughts—Bix had told her she projected too much—and concentrated on finding a way out of this mess. Better yet, maybe if she screamed Bix’s name loud enough in her head he would hear her somehow.

“We didn’t mean to frighten you, Doctor. After all, death is nothing to be afraid of,” Sidheon said with a chilling, long-toothed smile. So, her reasoning that Bix was after the good Dr. Aleth Sidheon because he was a vampire had been correct. So not good. “Besides, I have some fun planned for us first.”

She laughed outright. Not a cute little chuckle, but a good belly buster of a laugh. As much as her vision began to swim, she just couldn’t seem to stop. When she finally caught her breath, she gathered a fat wad of spit in her mouth and let it fly. Damn, he dodged it. And now he was pissed. She could feel the anger radiating off him.

With a signal from Sidheon, Fang Boy lunged in synch with the other two. She was grabbed from behind and felt the tender skin of her neck ripped open from her chin down to her collarbone. But that pain was nothing compared to the continual blows to her face and body, pummeling her, rocking her until she tasted her own coppery metallic blood as it pooled in her mouth. She tried to kick out at the man directly in front of her, tried to get away from at least one set of hands ravaging her body. But her arms were wrenched behind her back and pulled tight until she thought her elbows would meet. Silver blades flashed in the moonlight and a fresh agonizing burn radiated from her stomach and expanded out along her ribs.

It was too much. She was dying. One more hack or cut and her life was over. Then she saw it, the blade poised to deliver the final stroke headed towards the left side of her chest in a perfect, lethal arc. Following the knife with blurred vision, Carin made her peace with God.

A furious, agonized roar vibrated the air. Had she been screaming? Her burning, scratchy throat felt raw enough. Suddenly there were no more hands pulling her arms from the sockets. No more fists striking. No more blades ripping. Only the welcoming coolness of concrete under her body. No, the coolness wasn’t welcome. She didn’t want to die. That was the sole purpose of the last ten years of her life—to prevent the very thing that had come for her tonight. Damned son-of-a-bitch, Death.

The last thing she saw was Bix’s bare hands ripping Fang Boy’s throat out while a blond giant gutted another of the creeps who’d been gutting her. God was so cool. He’d sent her two avenging angels—Bix, dark as sin and hard as stone, and the other was just as tall and powerful, but blond and so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him.

She wanted to shout to the bad guys, wanted to yell, “That’s what you get, you punks.” But the blackness came too swiftly, giving her no time to form the words.