I was tagged by @yoursummerfrost to post the last thing I wrote! Thank you! This isn't actually the last thing I wrote, because I'm currently sleep deprived from puppy parenting, but it's the last thing I wrote that's edited and not really a spoiler. A short scene from Chapter 8 of Near to The Wild Heart. Link to the published three chapters at the bottom!
The moon had risen, and he sat on the roof of the crypt, looking out at his domain in all its silvery splendor. He’d staked a few vamps on his way in – nothing to do with covering for the Slayer, it was just a case of keeping his own backyard clean – and got settled in for a solid night of stewing. He was holding a pilfered novel with his thumb between the pages, though he’d given up trying to read it after the sixth time his eyes had skimmed over a paragraph without reading a single word.
He chewed at his lower lip, clenched his jaw. Something big was going on, he knew that much. Something golden taken from the Slayer, a scar in the parkland, trees drenched in blood. The witch making a bargain with something dark and terrible, sealed with elder wood, unless he missed his guess. And Buffy coming to him with the sunrise.
At first, he thought it was a little cloud, passing in front of the moon. He wasn’t really looking at it. But he was staring up in its direction, and something about the way it moved caught his attention.
Mist – spirit-stuff – magic. There was something up there, rushing and rolling like a river, white horses spilling through the night. Far away it was, no larger than his thumbnail up there in the sky, but moving with intent, and fast. The book fell from his hand, forgotten in an instant, and he pulled both legs under him, bounding to his feet. Suddenly alert, he watched the sky. Faint snatches of something reached his ears. Howls of laughter, screaming, wild skirls of music – something harsh and cold, inhuman.
“Something riding abroad tonight, pet,” he said, to no-one in particular. Nobody but the moon heard.
The first three chapters are on Elysian Fields.
