Iron Maiden (Ravana Moon #1.5) Read online

  Chapter Eight

  Blood spilled from the cut along her victim’s neck. The body began to disintegrate on contact, and ashes flew around them as they moved. A dance of sorts had been playing, one with Ravana leading the fray.

  Ten years with the backing or the Order, and she was no closer to finding her answers, but she was much closer to the top of every bad guy’s hit list. She couldn’t walk the streets of Seattle without anyone spotting her red hair and wanting to make a name for themselves by taking out the big bad Red. The current group of newborns hadn’t even known who she was. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. Making her tally for the week, twenty newborns back where they belonged…dead.

  With everything, in general, going better than it had been since she started out her new life, she didn’t think it would stay that way for very long. Not with the Ancient One still unaccounted for, and new players showing up at every turn. Sebastian was just one of the thorns in her side. A few regulars who loved to taunt her and make her blood boil had rolled into town shortly after she had. Making her new start on the west coast, not as fresh.

  A lunge at her chest with a spiked flail made her jump backward, but not in time to stop the points of the flail from piercing her chest and neck. Luckily the owner of the weapon pulled back and it didn’t hit enough to stick. Ravana moved her arm up, pivoted on the ball of her foot and turned. Her hair flew out like a skirt, surrounding her as she moved through the air. Her sword hand coming down in time to make sure the spiked menace landed firmly on the ground, the handle still clutched by the gloved hand that held it. The owner of the weapon screamed, holding onto his arm that now shot crimson over the fray.

  Ravana looked all around her, having enough time to glance at her surroundings before a chunky blonde with dirt still caking her nails barreled after her. She had a lead pipe in her hand and blood still covered her mouth from her first feeding. She screamed her war cry as she moved in almost slow motion from the other side of the alley. A tall thin male jumped at the chance to run Ravana through with the dagger she dropped moments before.

  Ravana lifted her sword, it clashed with the lead pipe and she pushed the girl back as the dagger came at her other side. There wasn’t enough time. She lifted an empty hand in response to the dagger coming at her and tried to swing the sword back around. That’s when the first arrow struck.

  The male vampire turned to ash, the dagger dropping in Ravana’s outstretched hand which closed around the hilt and swung behind her, turning her body in time to plunge it hilt deep in the female’s chest. Her body turned to ash, falling away from the dagger as she pulled it back and placed it in the hip holster where it came from. The alley was clear. Nothing remained except the arrow sticking in the door frame of an abandoned building. It must have gone clean through the vampire and drove itself into the wood.

  It was long, with white and brown feathers. A unique look for a weapon from the twentieth century. If it was in fact from that century. Ravana looked toward the location the arrow must have traveled from. She didn’t know what she expected to find. The arrow could have only come from one of the nearby rooftops, which was empty. No one stood by waiting for a thank you, and she didn’t know if she would have given one. She only knew she suddenly felt less alone.

  S.L. Perrine is a wife to a mechanic and mother of four crazy teenagers (3 are boys) who eat her out of house and home. While raising her children, she has obtained three degrees; Associates in Art and Criminal Justice is among them. She now works to feed this bunch as a Registered Medical Assistant in a private physician's office in the city she currently resides. She is a native of Schenectady and Saratoga Springs, New York, having spent equal time growing up in both cities.

  “Authors write stories to fill the world with imagination for those who have a hard time finding their own.”

  ~SL PERRINE~