SPECIAL NEVER BEFORE RELEASED EXCERPT FROM THE UPCOMING DEMON HUNTER: HEROES CALL
We hurried through the streets like school kids. I could hardly wait to sweep Talisa up in my arms. She was my light, the best thing that ever happened to me. I'd been foolish to think that I needed high adventure to feed my soul. That restlessness had been sated and now I knew that with my wife and child, our family, I would never want for more.
My father had left me when I'd been just a boy. Even though I walked in his footsteps to carry on the demon hunter legacy I would be a better father. I'd never leave my family again.
When we reached the Calabrese home my happiness soured. From the outside everything looked picturesque but I'd learned long ago never to judge on looks alone. Multiple run-ins with shapeshifters will do that to you.
I trusted my intuition and my inner alarm system was going ballistic. Something felt cold, odd, out of place, and we hadn't even crossed the threshold yet.
Paralay tied up the Pegasus and bounded past me.
“What're we waiting for?”
He hurried inside calling out after Talisa. I was tempted to hold him back but instead I followed him inside. The house was just as I'd left it. No altercation had taken place, nothing was out of the ordinary. But still I felt uneasy. Trouble weighed down on me like a heavy cloak.
After going through each room of the house and even through the backyard the reason for my discontent surfaced. Talisa was gone.
“Where'd she go?” Paralay asked.
I tried to piece together an agreeable answer. I had none.
“I don't know.”
“Maybe she came to her senses and left you,” he joked.
I shook my head. “It's not funny. Something isn't right.”
“Relax Costa, she probably just went to the market or something.”
A thousand possibilities ran through my mind. I tried to persuade myself that he was right. Talisa would come back and everything would be as it was before. Deep in my heart I knew the truth.
And then I saw it, the marking on the wall just as in my visions. It read: “I am sent here by the chosen one. So shall it be written. So shall it be done. Child of light, be it daughter or son, is to be destroyed.”
She was gone just like that. Vanished without a trace or an explanation. The only thing that made any sense to me were the visions. Something dark and sinister had invaded our home and swept Talisa off into the night.
How could I have let this happen? I speak all the time of not having regret and now I had to live with another. I would never, ever forgive myself for leaving her that that day.
I had tried to make peace within myself, saying it would only be for a little while and then I'd return to her and we'd live out our lives together until we were old and gray. But suddenly my perfect world had been turned upside down and I'd somehow lost the love of my life.
I fell to my knees shattered with despair. Paralay tried to comfort me to no avail. Nothing he could say would make me feel any better. The only person I wanted to talk to was the one person I couldn't find.
My breath caught in my chest and I started to shudder. I couldn't speak. Pain hollowed out my insides like a searing hot knife and I felt as though my heart might literally shatter. I couldn't catch my breath and when I did I only managed to utter one word.
“Destroyer.”
