Into the Night

copyright 2008 by Esther Mitchell

“Undercover” (Excerpted from TERROR IN FLIGHT)

    When she got home, she was going to kill someone!

    Blowing out her cheeks in disgust, Shanna Garrett glared at her reflection in the soot-covered window of the train’s passenger compartment.  At least, she assumed that was her face.  It looked more like the by-product of a chemical weapons experiment to her.  If not for her dark hair, hazel eyes, and sharp cheekbones, she wouldn’t recognize herself.  She stared at a stranger.

    A stranger with eyes ringed in so much mascara Shanna had to fight to keep her lids open.  The high arches of her cheekbones were slathered with enough blush to lose Tammy Faye Bakker in, and her lips were caked in lipstick of a garish red Shanna swore should be fire engine paint.  Somehow, all that get-up conspired to create the image of a soft, pampered woman  Shanna didn’t want to know.

    She was a warrior, damn it, not a lover.  She survived jump school, dive school, the Gulf War, and Top Gun, and not necessarily in that order.  A brief, cocky grin flashed on her lips as she recalled Top Gun.  Those guys hadn’t wanted her there, sure as shooting, but Shanna Lynn Garrett forgot long ago how to roll over and play dead.  Instead, she pressed them, nose-to-nose on the deck, and kicked their conceited asses one-by-one.

   She flew a nearly flawless thirty-five missions off carriers before resigning her commission because the challenge was just gone.  As much as she loved flying, only the constant challenge kept her, and the Navy was losing that edge by catering to a bunch of weak-willed women who couldn’t shove a man’s passes back down his own arrogant throat.  So, when Matt Raleigh came knocking, she considered Prometheus the perfect solution.  Or so she thought.

   Shanna’s scowl deepened as she fought the pain.   Instead, she focused on plucking at the over-tight dress hugging her nonexistent curves, even as she stared at her reflection and wondered how this assignment would turn out.  It couldn’t be worse than the last one.  Nothing could.

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copyright 2008 by Esther Mitchell

BETWEEN WORLDS

   She was so cold.  The wind here on the shore was bitter, chilled by the storm that raged around her.  Csilla huddled in the cavern, watching as sthe boats were made ready.

    “Are you ready, Gatekeeper?”

    She turned at the sound of a masculine voice, to find Sargon beside her, tall and strong in his armor, the glow of his charge shining around him even from where it rested, secure in the scabbard at his side.  She shuddered to think that, of them all, only she was a real danger.  Only her charge could bring them all back to this place, and only her charge could be forced from her grasp by any manner besides death.

   “Go, Warrior,” she whispered, already aware of what she must do.  And yet, she could not tell these men, her soul-brothers, what she planned.  They would surely halt her plan, if they knew how she meant to protect them all.  “I am weary, and will bide here a while.”

   He frowned.  “It is not safe, Csilla.  Already, Arachaena swarm the mountain above us.  They must not find us here.”

   She looked out toward the storm-tossed waves whose peace she once found solace in.  Sadness gripped her that she would leave this behind, and she hugged her cloak tighter about her shoulders.  There was no help for it.  This was as it must be.

  ”I shall follow directly.  Have Mykalos tie me a boat in yon rocks.”

   Sargon sighed, but relented.  Truly, he was too tender to a woman’s comfort; she feared that would bring him to ill ends.  “Do not linger too long, Csilla.”

   She smiled up at him, careful that he did not read her sorrow.  “I will be gone before they arrive.”

   With a nod, his eyes wary, Sargon left her and headed for the boats beyond.  Csilla sighed, and shivered slightly as she rested her back against the cool rocks.  She felt the weight of the knife concealed beneath her cloak.  She would keep her promise.  Only, it would not be as Sargon believed.

 Find out more about this series at www.esthermitchell.com/projectmain

Read IN HER NAME and HOPE OF HEAVEN today!  Find them at:

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www.aspenmountainpress.com/hope-of-heaven/prod_128.html

   So, I just got back from a trip home to the East Coast, and with every day that passes, I’m more convinced I should never have come back.

   You see, I’m a small-town kind of girl.  I grew up in the world’s back yard, a military brat with all of Europe to explore.  And I loved it.  But I was never one for the tourist traps or large cities.  Give me a small, rural town full of color and character - someplace that still radiates the true history of a nation.  For all the years I lived in Europe, I was surrounded by small towns and rural stretches of field and forest, and I loved it all.

   When I moved back to the US in the late 90s, my first stop was a small town in rural Pennsylvania.  Sure, I had my problems with the town, but that was mostly in the narrow-mindedness of some of its inhabitants.  But I loved the area, with its open fields, forests, and streams.  There’s just something so pure and whole about nature as seen in small towns.

   Several years ago, I got married, and moved from rural PA to urban Arizona.  It’s been a daily struggle for me, here, to adapt to the lack of forests, the lack of grass, and more than that, the lack of everything I call home.  Big cities are far from where I belong.  Too full of noise and bustle, and everyone running around but going nowhere.  My health’s declined since moving into this environment, and I long for the forests and fields - for the nature I left behind when I came here.

   Since my recent visit back East, I’ve decided that’s where I belong.  It may take me a few years to get there, but like Dorothy in Oz, I’m heading home the first chance I get.