Bloodstone Back Cover Excerpt (Hard cover edition)

He went to her quickly, a moan dying in the back of his throat, and touched the side of her neck, feeling for the jugular. No pulse. He looked up past her body to the red-streaked mark on the wall, and his dream came crashing back to him like a wave; tumbling, her head hitting the plaster with a sickening crunch, a splash of blood, her hip snapping like dry kindling. Just the way her husband had died, ten years before.

He raised his gaze to the top of the steps and his eyes locked with sudden shock on the thing that had been Jeboriah Taylor.

Glittering, feverish eyes set deep in hollow sockets, behind heavy brows, searching him out, pinning him with their fury; yellow skin, a wound for a nose, pale, lipless mouth spread in a lunatic’s grin. He heard the deep, rasping breaths in the silence of the house, and then the stink hit him in the face like an open-handed slap. A smell like a rotting sewer.

Oh my sweet Jesus. He backed away, mindless now, the fear like bile in his throat. He could not take his eyes from the creature at the top of the stairs.

The thing chuckled, a deep, bone-jarring sound. A long, slow line of spittle dripped from the corner of its mouth and spun to the floor.

This was not Jeb. It could not be; and yet, the slump of his shoulders, the way he stood, hip cocked, head forward on a thin neck. Harry thought of the frightened little boy so many years ago who had acted like a dog that had been kicked too many times. He felt himself gasping for air, his chest heaving, hands out, as if in supplication. You cannot be Jeb Taylor.

His back touched the edge of the open front door. It hadn’t closed on him after all. He was free.

Harry Stowe turned and ran, shirt flapping, out into the cheery bright spring morning.

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