Speak of the Devil 

This week’s guest post belongs to Kate McKeever who is the author of Caden’s Fate. 

Want a sneak peek? Take a look at chapter one from Caden’s Fate

Chapter One

Evil whispered to Fate in the cool morning air threatening her composure as she tried to focus on her friend.

“I wish I had your talent.” Beth sighed into the coffee cup filled with a double shot of espresso.

Startled, Fate eyed her friend. How much does she suspect? She couldn’t know about it, surely. Fate never shared her secrets with outsiders. She toned down the voices whispering in her head and smiled. “My talent?”

“To know what to say in situations like this morning.” Beth pulled her large Danish closer to her and began to pick at the nuts sprinkled on top of the confection.

“It was a difficult time for the family, what with their mother and wife dying so young.” Fate struggled to put something of her talent into terms her friend could understand. “I just tried to give them some measure of hope and comfort.”

“I know. I wish I could have found some words too. I was her nurse til the end and had nothing to say. You get called in at the last minute and do all the right things.” Beth raised tortured eyes to Fate. “I think I’m in the wrong job.”

Fate agreed. Working at a residential hospice could be one of the most trying jobs in the nursing field. Yet, Fate’s position as a medical social worker fit her, in more ways than one.

“You know, there are other jobs out there.” She sipped her own less potent mixture of coffee and cream. “I hear the rehab wing at the university hospital has openings.”

Though they sat at a table in the middle of the city, Fate caught the hint of turning leaves in the crisp dawn air. Underlying it all whispered the ever-present voices, souls calling out to her. And this morning, a feeling of threat hung over the air like smoke.

“Yeah, maybe I’ll look into that. I think I’d do well in rehab. More hope, you know?” Beth’s eyes held a little more life when she looked up from her food.

Fate nodded. She couldn’t imagine being away from the dying, but it wasn’t for everyone.

It hadn’t been the greatest idea, to sit at the sidewalk tables at the coffee house at five in the morning. The other customers abandoned the crisp air, leaving Fate and Beth alone. Fate realized how vulnerable they were, sitting at their table in the dim predawn hour. Fate’s neck grew chilled, as if a cold breeze blew across it, though no wind disturbed the air. Someone watched them. It couldn’t be anything else. She could almost taste the evil in the air as she took a breath.

The buzz of warning in her mind grew to an alarming level, blurring the lines between reality and psychic forewarning. A slight noise from the bushes near their sidewalk table caused her to shift in her chair.

Fate leaned toward her friend and whispered, “Let’s go inside.”

Beth pulled her focus from picking the cinnamon roll to crumbs to glance up at Fate and stare. A minute too long. A man erupted from the bushes. Fate threw up an arm to block the wicked looking blade he thrust toward her. She managed to jar him enough to deflect the blow but gasped as the long knife sliced open her forearm.

Beth scrambled backwards from the assailant. At least the assailant didn’t seem to want her friend, as his attention focused solely on Fate The blood streaming down her arm only distracted her at first, then made her movements slow as she tried to defend herself.

She tried to file away facts, just in case she survived the attack. He dressed totally in black, pants and t-shirt, sported short dark hair and dark, dead eyes. And a serious purpose to kill her, apparently.

“For the soul,” he hissed, sending a chill through her. Was she a random target or did he mean to steal her soul?

Time slowed with each pass he made at her, as did her attempts to deflect the blows the knife, the blade dulled with more blood. Each stroke of his blade created a red-hot trail of stinging pain.

Beth screamed, pulling Fate’s attention away for a split second. A second man, taller and more menacing though he showed no knife, ran toward them. God she hoped he would help. She threw up a hand to dodge another blow.

If this one hit—

But it didn’t and no other jabs followed. She took a breath and glanced around for Beth. Their table overturned in a crash as the two men battled in the pre-dawn light, near the edge of the building. Fate scrambled toward the bundle of humanity lying near the wall. Beth huddled in a ball beyond the overturned table, her arms shielding her head, sobbing.

“Beth, did he hurt you?” Fate started to touch her but decided against it. Though her arms were a mass of blood and slashes, she didn’t feel any pain. A wonderful thing, adrenaline.

She sat beside her friend and cupped her hand over the gash in her own arm, trying to stem the flow of blood and to prevent it from touching Beth. “We have to call the police. Beth! Do you have your phone?”

Beth just rolled into a tighter ball. Fate glanced over her shoulder toward the scuffle. It wasn’t like the movies at all. The men fought in silence, the only sounds, other than the beating of her heart and ever-present murmurs in her head, were grunts and the dull thuds indicating a fist encountering flesh. An acrid tang of fear filled her mouth.

She needed to find someone to help, but how couldn’t leave Beth. She glanced around the coffee shop parking lot. Though cars were parked in several spaces, no one else remained outside. She didn’t see her carryall containing her cell phone. And she couldn’t focus enough to call for help psychically.

So much for her talent.

A sharp movement to her right pulled her head around. Their attacker stood over her. His arm raised and ready to strike. Frozen, she stared into his eyes. No emotion, no crazed wildness, and no drugged haze flickered in his eyes. Just a flat, almost reptilian gaze.

Fate stared at the blade as it swept toward her in slow motion. Eons passed and she waited, too stunned to do more than watch as the knife approached.

The movement outside her bubble of awareness startled her more than the assailant’s actions. The other man kicked out, pushing her attacker into the wall and jarring into Beth. A grunt followed a thud as the second man landed on top of the first.

The faint whimper sounded in her head, almost a plea. She couldn’t discriminate whether it between a call for help in passing the portal and psychic clutter. In her frenzy to stay alive, she couldn’t filter out the sounds, the mess of psychic calls and thoughts she normally dulled.

Fate rolled her head toward the battle but nothing registered. The world receded. The voices. Her constant companions since her earliest memory, faded away to the void.

He’d used two knives, she realized. One, a long one, utilitarian and silver, nothing out of the ordinary, sliced at her arms. The other appeared to be different, alive. Shorter, with a shine that gleamed from within, it gave off power, evil. Did Death Maidens see their own death coming? She couldn’t. And who would escort her through the portal?

Who is Kate McKeever?

The essential Kate McKeever is a dreamer, paranormal romance writer, and voracious reader.

She started writing at a young age, like all writers, but decided to break into romance writing when she joined her local Romance Writers of America chapter. She published two sweet romances  with a New York publisher and now has turned her attention to her first love, paranormal romance.

Kate grew up in the mountains of the southern highlands. After college, several tries at different careers and a lot of soul searching, she has returned to her first passion, writing. You’ll find her in front of her computer most evenings, surrounded by her pets, a calico tabby who is convinced she is queen of the keyboard and a terrier mix whose love of rawhide bones is only surpassed by that of Kate’s  books, with ketchup! You’re also likely to find the remains of coffee and chocolate.

You can visit Kate at her website, www.katemckeever.com