Not So Solitary's First Teaser Tuesday

Well, as a thank you to The Purple Patch for posting such a kick ass Tuesday Teaser (which completley made my day), I'm posting a small snippet of my NaNo project. This year my NaNo project is a YA novel. What follows is a bit from the prologue which takes place about 1,000 years before the story starts. It's really rough and I apologize in advance for the sloppy writing and any typos...I'm way too supersitious to have a title for this beast yet, but here you go!


When they found her in the dusk-caked ruins of the old city, their first thought was of murder. Trials were matters of expedience and urgency, but this was something different. For her crimes, she should burn. Immediately. The crowd's anger would be abated by nothing less than the total destruction of the woman. The dogs strained on their leashes, desperate to claw their way closer to the huddled mass of flesh.

Her hollow and deadened eyes stared out at the mob that surrounded her. She hissed at the crowd and flashed a set of serrated fangs. She clawed, her long taloned-fingers slashed the empty air around her. She screamed, it was a sound that broke through the chanting of the crowd and the slowly descending night. Her choked screams sounded like a murder of crows had taken flight. Then she laughed.

Her dark blue raven-wing coloured hair was thick with mats and burs. She had been hiding for too long. Her dark power weakened by the constant gnawing strength of this small village. She should have foreseen this end, her sisters would no doubt be ashamed to find out how foolishly she had behaved. How wantonly she had attempted to live amongst these worthless. These nobodies. These nothings.

She pushed herself up to her full height. She was a statuesque woman, slender and beautiful. Had her face not been mud streaked and her hair not knotted she would have been breathtakingly stunning. As it was, the crowd tumbled backwards in a dark awe. She was terrible and furious. She was the end.

A small woman broke away from the crowd and approached her. The woman's rose coloured hair flapped around her face in the breeze.

“It is time you were gone from here, demon. We have endured your torture long enough.” The woman's voice carried across the ruined buildings. She faced the demon without fear, without remorse, with a certain understanding of how this would end.

The raven-haired creature laughed. “You do not possess the power to banish me. I will call for my sisters and we will feast upon your village. We shall turn your nothing town into our immortal city of bones and ashes. We shall crave our future from your worthless mortal lives. We will drain this land of life and leave a wasteland for crows.” She licked her lips. “And I shall curse those of your descent. For a thousand years they shall no know peace, speak the truth and have others hear it as lies, they shall die in destitute madness and poverty.” She smiled. “Go on, you cheap charlatan, do your worst!” She roared.

The woman took a step closer to the creature. She felt herself waiver. She had studied these creatures for years. She had been raised to destroy such beasts, and yet, standing before it in all its unearthly glory she paled. She looked to the crowd. She raised her silver dagger above her head.

“Gentle villagers we must tie her to a stake and burn her at a cross roads. We must scatter her ashes to the winds that she may never find her way back to our village.” Her voice shook with both fear and prophecy.

The people behind her shifted and shouted. Their torches held aloft and blazing. A man pushed past her and stood between the woman and the creature.

“She lies! We must throw the monster from the cliffs and into the sea. It is the only way.” His hair and beard were streaked with a russet colour that glowed in the torch light. “Do not listen to the outsider, she speaks of madness. Everyone knows the only way to kill a succubus is to throw the beast into the waves. Bind the creature with silver ropes and chains and bring her to the cliffs.”

The crowd cheered as two strapping men pushed past the woman and seized the creature. They bound the creature's hands and ankles to a wooden stake and carried her slung between them from the city and towards the cliffs. Their progress was lighted by the flickering torches.

The woman shivered. “Jezebel,” she whispered. One of the great and last.