Past Redemption: The Darkwing Chronicles, Book Two
by Savannah Russe, 2006

An Excerpt

Chapter One

Even before I finished getting dressed, I had a bad feeling about the evening ahead. The miserable February weather added to my misgivings. The sleet that had started an hour earlier sounded like roofing nails being thrown against the windowpane. Wind was howling around the corner of my Upper West Side building like a wolf racing after its prey. My whole apartment seemed unusually frigid and empty, hollow within just like me. As a vampire, I chill easily, and now with a cold and tremulous hand, I pulled on my boots, grabbed the black leather motorcycle jacket that matched my leather pants, and headed for the door.

I didn't want to go out, but I had been summoned by my boss, whom I know only as J. If I had my way, I'd still be in my flannel jammies, the ones with cowboys on them from Jackson Hole Traders, my feet toasty in UGGs, and a mug of herbal tea in my hand while I sniffed and moped around my living room thinking about my ex-boyfriend, Darius. Things hadn't worked out as I hoped. He was gone but not forgotten. To crank up my misery to its max, I'd be playing the golden-oldies CDs that make me cry, like Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is" and anything by October Project.

But J called and told me it was time I got back to work. Being a spy employed by an ultra secret American intelligence agency is sort of like being in the military. The higher-ups issue orders. I follow them-even when my instincts tell me they're dead wrong. Ours not to reason why, Ours but to do and die. Tonight I couldn't guess what arcane plot or secret plan lay behind J's directions not to come to the office, but instead to head over to an Irish bar in Hell's Kitchen. I'd been to that bar before. If you like pub fare, they serve some killer potato skins with cheddar, bacon, and chives. I'd be better off with food that appealed to carnivores like me, something nearly raw and bloody. It might supply me with a needed infusion of energy and even optimism. But depression over the break-up and the death of my romantic dreams had killed my appetite. However, considering the urges of my dark side to dine on human blood, a lack of hunger is not entirely a bad thing.

Savannah Russe / DarkwingChronicles.com Pennsylvania E-Mail RusseReaders@Homexpressway.net For requests for media interviews, writing seminars, or book signings, you can contact: Writers Unlimited Inc. 570-675-3447