Right, so, I figured I'd post a bit more from the new WiP. It picks up a few paragraphs after the prior Teaser and continues to the end of the chapter. So far, I've only managed to get 4,800 words written, but... oh well. My miniature monsters come first. (Doesn't help that I haven't felt up to writing, nor has Mark.)

Besides, I've got a few contests for digital art to enter before Halloween. Who knows, maybe I might actually win something. If not, at least I'll have tried...

Anywhos, here's the teaser. Enjoy!


It may have been small, but the spells inscribed on the pages gave it a distinct flavor and the smirk faded into a puzzled frown. It was powerful, written by a powerful immortal witch or sorcerer, but it held the distinct tangy mixture of Dark and Light magic. Definitely an oddity for few immortals delved in both types of magic and the rare mortal that could control magic, typically weren’t taught anything other than benign witchcraft that had little power in any world.

Banshees were one type, but it didn't have the usual feel of the bean sidhe. As she turned it in her hands, rubbing her thumb along the locked clasp, she considered the type of magic imbued in the leather. The more she thought on it, the more it felt like the rare few books that had been written by the elves. Though, all the other books she'd held were books of Light magic, not Dark. Except for the one her great-aunt had shown her when she was five.

Dear gods, did one of the damned docelfar magic books get stolen and brought to the mortal realms for 'safe keeping' by some crazed mortal? Or, worse yet, another immortal? If it were another immortal, they would know who had retrieved the spell book and would, undoubtedly, be looking for her. It also explained her employer's interest, as well as the reward he had offered if she succeeded.

No sooner than the thought had come to life than the feel of magic indicating someone materializing washed over her followed by several branches breaking. Glancing over her shoulder, she snickered as she saw three men clad in black jeans, shirts, and jackets plowing their way through a thicket of briers. Whoever had sent them, hadn’t known the terrain, but that didn't mean she was going to be able to simply sit here and wait for the three goons to catch her and steal away her prize.

Leaping over the rocks, she ran her finger across the latch and spat out a single word to open it. Fortunately, between her power as a sidhe and the book being in the mortal realms, it clicked open and the pages unfurled.

Racing through the field and towards the dilapidated and abandoned buildings that had once been houses, Iliana held the book with one hand as her right flipped through the pages, allowing her magic to find the right spell by touch alone. The next time she saw her cousin Colin, she'd thank him for forcing her to learn that talent.

Glancing down as she raced towards the gravel road overgrown by weeds, short saplings, and wild rose bushes, she read the words for teleporting, giving the destination as Nid Tir, more commonly called the Dimension Depot, due to the trains that could take a person anywhere in the mortal realms, space, or immortals lands.


The all-too-familiar feeling of being swept onto a tilt-a-whirl flooded over her, the greenery vanished in a swirl worse than a child's finger-painting and was replaced by the orange-red of the barren land of Nid Tir. Even worse was the fact that Iliana had spoken the words as she was running and, like most teleportation spells, she was still moving as she materialized in Nid Tir. It wouldn't have been so bad had she also not been dropped in the middle of the giant wasteland of soil mounds.

Picking herself up off the ground after tripping over one of the mutant anthills, that fortunately did not house ants or anything else, Iliana dusted the orange-brown sand-like dirt from her clothes and closed the magic book.
That is the absolute last time I read anything from an unknown leather-bound book while running, Iliana fumed silently as she thumped the book against her hip before sliding it into a hip pocket.

Staring across the barren landscape of small hills and knolls, Iliana shrugged and started trudging across the dunes that ranged from waist-high anthills to small rounded knolls. She would have preferred using her usual spell to whisk her to one of the small, hidden colonies tucked safely in the mountains between Swoope, Virginia and Sugar Grove, West Virginia, and catching a train from there. Unfortunately, whoever had hidden the book, or someone else who knew of its location, had sent those three goons after her and, well, desperate times called for desperate measures.

After what seemed like hours, though she suspected it was more like minutes since time was different in Nid Tir, she finally found the train tracks that led to and from one of the stations. Unfortunately, each train was labeled for her home realm.

Iliana didn't want to return to Staunton, Waynesboro, or even Richmond. She had to go to Fellhaven and hand the book over to her employer before the goons figured out where she had went; especially since whoever had sent them to get the book probably also knew about the Dimension Depot.

Why hadn't she listened to her mother and become an accountant?