Sister Mary Clarence pounded on the dorm door once more. “Chelsea Childling, open your door!”
Chelsea stared at the cheap, pressed particle board, wondering if the nun had the strength to knock it down. When Mary Clarence started pounding again, Chelsea sighed. She’d known this confrontation was inevitable. She’d just planned on the inevitable being much later. And maybe over the phone, long after she’s moved out of the dorm and quit school.
Hot, damp air blew across her face, and Chelsea rolled over. Her heart pounded in her temples and the light hurt her eyes.
Amber’s raspy voice reverberated in Chelsea’s skull. “Hair of the dog, hun.”
Chelsea reluctantly sat up, rubbing gingerly at her eyes. She accepted the mason jar of booze in silence. The bright sunshine felt wrong to her. Today should have been as dark and rainy as last night.
Her heart sped up and she couldn’t catch her breath. Alex. He was sweet and kind.
Everybody loved Alex. She loved Alex.
And Alex was dead.
Chelsea and the rest of the hunters try to save Alex and Tiggy from the nightlings. The hunt is on!
A light rain pattered on the gravel of the parking lot, but the whistling wind promised a storm. Chelsea leaned back in the seat of her car, studying the boarded windows of Boney’s haunt.
She’d been inside a handful of times before she’d decided not to hunt monsters. Dark, dirty, and usually full of surly hunters, it was the natural place to meet and discuss the reaver hunt.
With Amber back and in town and a hunt on the horizon, Chelsea has to make a decision. Is she a hunter or not?
. “How long do you think you’ll be in town?”
Amber shrugged. “Boney’s place comes with a reaver hunt attached. So at least until that’s done. Two, maybe three days, and then a week at the apartment.”
“Reavers?” Chelsea winced even as she said it. She’d sworn off monster hunting.
Amber, bless her, didn’t even flash a knowing look as she answered. “A type of vampire. Like the exact opposite of a nightling: animalistic, solitary, and ugly as sin.”
Chelsea’s hair whipped in the hot storm winds as she stomped across the empty quad. The dark clouds and thunder matched her mood perfectly. She flew through the doors of the tiny student-run coffee shop as heat lightning raced overhead
It’s a new Chapter in the Chelsea Childling story: Chelsea and Amber.
Back at college, Chelsea is trying to forget about monster hunting, especially the parts of it regarding Jackson Hawk.
A new threat and an old friend might make that impossible.
Mama gave her rolling laugh. “You’re barely old enough to drink. Give yourself some time, and some slack. Now, do you have a young man?”
“Mama…”
“Or a young lady. I’m not making assumptions.”
Words That Burn Like Fire 