New Release Post Excerpt from Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Hi Goddess Fish Party Pavilion People,
A little while ago I posted the backstory essay of my March 1 Rerelease Blood Forge-Revised Author's Edition, http://damnationbooks.com/people.php?author=79 (a dark horror novel with a subplot of romance originally a 1989 Leisure paperback) and now I'm going to post an excerpt from it. Blood Forge, as some of my first few novels, has some of my real life, experiences, woven into it. The cop murder in the beginning of the novel was something that actually happened in my circle of cop friends and cop wives. My first husband was a police officer in a small town and one of his cop friends shot his best friend (another cop) to death because his wife was leaving him for that other cop. I think I finally wrote about it all as therapy. It was quite a horrible scandal at the time; it affected all of us. The woman in the middle of it was one of my best friends. Oh, and as far as I know, no one has ever realized that connection….or no one has ever told me they had. Good thing. Now I look back at it and shudder that I put it all down on paper for everyone to see. The murder is in the distant past now (over 35 years ago), so no worry now for the rerelease. Thank you, author of 40 years; 14 published novels and 8 short stories and 2012 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS FINALIST NOMINEE for her romantic end-of-the-world horror novel THE LAST VAMPIRE-Revised Author's Edition, Kathryn Meyer Griffith rdgriff@htc.net www.myspace.com./kathrynmeyergriffith www.authorsden.com/kathrynmeyergriffith

Well, here's the blurb and excerpt:

Blurb:
Blood Forge-Revised Author’s Edition (originally a 1989 Leisure paperback). An ancient snake-demon lays trapped behind the stone walls of an Incan prison, for centuries demanding blood sacrifices and scheming to escape. Then it discovers a pathway into the world of men, forging itself into a malevolent 357 Colt Python, and making itself capable of incomparable destruction and misery. Through decades it torments, decimates, the unfortunate people whose lives it comes into until a loving married couple, Emily and Sam Walters, have enough love and faith–and the help of a mysterious priest who’s much more than he appears to be–to fight against and destroy it forever…and to send it back to hell where it belongs.***

Excerpt:
When she walked into their room, Sam was already in the shower. She could hear the water running, and his discarded uniform was scattered across their bed. His underclothes usually went directly into the hamper in the bathroom.
On top of their dresser, as usual, he’d tossed his keys, wallet, and duty gun belt.
Emily moved to the dresser and straightened out his things. That was when she spied the gun in his duty belt. She hadn’t liked guns since Brian’s death years ago, in fact, she loathed them, so she didn’t pay much attention to them, but she’d seen Sam’s duty gun often enough to know it. She hesitated, staring at the new gun, and slowly slid it out of the holster. She wasn’t the expert on guns Sam was, so she didn’t know what kind of a gun this one was, but she didn’t have to be an expert to see that this wasn’t his duty gun, a sturdy Smith & Wesson she’d seen so many times.
She held it up to the light behind her and inspected it. It was sleek and beautiful with an unusual etching along the barrel. Big. Black as coal, with blue highlights. It looked expensive. No, it was definitely not his duty weapon.
Where had Sam gotten it? Why was he using it instead of his regular gun? Running her hands along its cold sides, she thought perhaps his gun had broken somehow and this one was just a loaner from one of his fellow officers. Made sense. She’d have to ask him about it later.
Satisfied, she was about to slip it back into its holster when a sharp burning sensation started at the tips of her fingers and spread, a fiery shiver, up her hand and the length of her arm.
“Damn!” she yelped in pain, dropping the gun onto the dresser among Sam’s keys and personal papers, where it almost seemed to smolder. Wisps of sooty smoke curled around it.
“What the—?” Emily gaped at the gun and watched in disbelief as an eerie greenish glow emanated from it like a hazy halo and simply evaporated like mist on a windy night. Right before her eyes. The gun then looked like any other gun. Just as before.
Emily cautiously stepped away from the dresser, still glaring at the hunk of black metal. Had she really seen what she’d thought she’d seen or was it strain and fatigue catching up with her? Or was she, too, going a teeny bit crazy?
She felt something stealthily observing her from one of the room’s gloomy corners. Inhuman eyes pierced through her, willing her to turn around. To obey. She didn’t understand why, but she fought the urge with everything in her. She knew she had to. She wasn’t going to look. She wasn’t. Because she was suddenly scared of what would look back at her.
Sibilant whispers floated on the warm air like the hopeless sighs of the dead.
The hair on the back of her neck tingled, and a freezing shiver swept through her rigid body. Something waited, watching; some evil presence probing hungrily at the corners of her mind, fighting to get in. She continued to resist it. All of a sudden she was filled with such unexplained horror she couldn’t move; couldn’t turn around...couldn’t think...a butterfly pinned to a board with a tack, her heart thumping in her chest; hurting.
Please God, help me, her heart pleaded desperately.
Then the something disappeared, along with the sinister emotions, the numbing fright and repulsive images that had bombarded her consciousness. The whispers. It released her.
Emily sagged against the dresser. Her face white around startled green eyes and her body drained. Her body and mind were weak but hers again.
She saw nothing in the corner.
Shaking now, she stared at the gun lying on Sam’s dresser. The gun. Had what she experienced had something to do with it? When she’d touched it? Or had it been her vivid imagination and frayed nerves working overtime?
“Thank you, God,” she breathed. Am I going insane? Then she realized that in that very moment she’d felt the most fear, the most lost, she’d called out for her old savior to help her. God. The hero of her childhood. The God she’d long ago turned her back on because of Brian.
He’d heard her. He had helped. She didn’t know how she could be so sure of it, but she was.
Sam’s shower noises had stopped; he was calling her. He needed another dry towel.
Shaking her head in bewilderment, she stole a last thoughtful glance at the gun on the dresser and went into the steamy bathroom to get Sam his dry towel.
I’ll ask David Kramer about it. Emily had finally met him a few days before to wrap up his story, and she’d been amazed at how knowledgeable on his subject and perceptive the man had been. How intelligent and comfortable he’d been to be around. To talk to. Yes, she’d ask him about the weird episode and the gun. He knew about those things. Perhaps he’d have an answer for her. He’d explain what happened because she sure as hell couldn’t.
Also, a voice nudged persistently, you’ll ask him because you’re a little frightened too. Right? Something kept bothering her about that gun, yet as hard as she wracked her brain, she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
Something wasn’t right. Maybe it would come to her later. ***

Kathryn Meyer Griffith's books (most out again from Damnation Books and Eternal Press): Evil Stalks the Night, The Heart of the Rose, Blood Forge, Vampire Blood, The Last Vampire, Witches, The Nameless One short story, The Calling, Scraps of Paper, All Things Slip Away, Egyptian Heart, Winter's Journey, The Ice Bridge, Don't Look Back, Agnes novella, In This House short story, BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons, The Woman in Crimson, The Guide to Writing Paranormal Fiction: Volume 1 (I did the Introduction) ***
http://www.myspace.com/kathrynmeyergriffith (to see all my book trailers with original music by my singer/songwriter brother JS Meyer)
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http://www.authorsden.com/kathrynmeyergriffith
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