Hearts of Fire by Kira Brady Page B

With an iron claw, he rebuilt the Kivati into a severe warrior caste. The war moved to the shadows, where it was hidden from the humans.
    Over a century later, the blood of both sides soaked the cursed earth. The Gate between the worlds buckled beneath the onslaught of ghosts, setting the stage for a final betrayal. It will take two stubborn hearts to save this city of darkness.

Keep reading for a sneak preview of
Hearts of Darkness ,
the first Deadglass Novel by Kira Brady!
Available in paperback
and as an e-book in August 2012.
    “These shores will swarm with the invisible Dead of my Tribe. The White Man will never be alone. Let him be kind and just to my People, for the Dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a Change of Worlds.”
    —CHIEF SEATTLE,
Washington Territories, 1854
     
    Seattle, Present Day
     
    The drowning world was gray through the riflescope. From the exposed rooftop across the street, Hart watched the Seattle morgue. Charms to guard against the dead were woven into the cyclone fence. They whistled in the harsh March wind—a low haunted noise, like the keening of spirits.
    Hart hunched in his worn bomber jacket. Rain sliced his skin and pummeled the broken asphalt far below. Soggy leaves and cigarette butts raged through overflowing gutters toward distant Puget Sound. Wiping the water out of his eyes, he watched a woman come into view. She fit the profile of his target: midtwenties, short, curvy, with smooth latte skin, generous eyebrows, and a high forehead. She shivered in a thin jean jacket that did nothing to shield her from the rain. Did she have the necklace with her? Her body tensed when she caught sight of the morgue. She wrapped her arms around herself, hesitating momentarily as she took a shaky breath.
    She pushed the thick brown hair out of her face, and he saw her eyes. Framed with wet-clumped lashes, they were golden brown and red from crying. Nothing special, and yet for a moment he forgot himself. Forgot his stiff aches and his cold fingers. Forgot the job and the madness and the constant stench of blood on his hands. Forgot his one driving goal: freedom.
    Then she turned her head and the moment was lost. He felt the rain again beating on his face and the familiar burning in his chest. He tamped it down before it consumed him, before the thing inside him clawed out of his skin.
    She continued down the sidewalk. Her generous ass swayed in the soaked jeans plastered to her body. Hart swallowed.
    Around her, the Aether roiled—a sure sign she was not alone. The shining water that surrounded all matter didn’t take kindly to ghosts on the wrong side of the Gate to the Land of the Dead. Spirits were supposed to pass peacefully through those Gates, leaving this world to the living, but the Gate in Seattle was busted. Dark spirits slipped free through the crack formed by Chief Seattle’s curse to wreak havoc among the living.
    Hart pulled a small spyglass out of his pocket. Holding the Deadglass to his eye, he adjusted the cluster of gears to focus the glittering cut-glass lens. The murky sight that emerged sent a jolt of fear to his gut. His lips peeled back, baring his teeth, and the beast inside him sat up and growled.
    He knew the spirit world was alongside him, but it was another thing entirely to see it with his own eyes. The damned souls who refused to pass through the Gate swarmed around the woman on the street below. Her grief attracted them like moths to the flame. He could almost taste their hunger. The ethereal forms floated around her. Craving her touch. Coveting her senses.
    She unconsciously waved a hand in front of her face as if brushing away fog, but was unaware of the danger. Why did humans choose to ignore their instincts?
    For some reason the sight of the woman trapped by the wraiths affected him more than it should have. His beast strained forward, trying to catch her scent across the waterlogged street. Energy tingled through his core. Fur