I'm honored to be kicking off the blog tour for
Moonchild Rising, a new Catholic fantasy by Mina Ambrose.
Mara the Huntress resides in
the sunny little town of Archangel, California, the location of the Gate of the
Underworld—a fact unknown to the general populace. Most people don’t even know
that vampires exist. As Huntress, Mara does know, and it is her job to kill
those that dare venture forth to the Upperworld to prey on the humans living
there. She is well-suited to this purpose, gifted with skills and talents far
surpassing those of ordinary mortals. Though some vampires manage to evade her,
she has so far managed to prevent the unleashing of a full-scale infestation.
She has been at this job for a good portion of her not-quite twenty years, and
it seems she has everything in hand. Then one day she gets a chill of
foreboding, a feeling that things are about to change…
For she stands in the way of the master
vampire’s plan for world domination, and, he fears, may be a key player in the
fulfillment of an ancient prophecy foretelling his destruction. One dark night
he sends the mighty Prince (his second in command) to put an end to this
Huntress, this bane of vampires, once and for all. Mara confidently goes out to
face him, but finds she has met her match at last. Just as all hope seems lost,
this powerful vampire turns from the “dark side” to become Mara’s ally in the
battle against his own kind.
Excerpt
California. March 1998
Her first
warning was that unnatural chill in the night. Mara Dawn
Amarantides froze, listened. Caught
the slight whisper of a cloak and a flapping sound, as of bat’s wings. And that
choking smell of death, faint but unmistakable. Vampire!
She
twisted around, her long, golden braid swinging across her back and glinting in
the circle of white cast from the streetlights. Where…? That alley across the
way? No, no, further… She ran down the sidewalk, dodging the occasional
pedestrian, frightening them perhaps, but—no time to apologize, this was
urgent. A matter of life and death. She peered down side streets and alleyways,
eagle eyes missing nothing as she flew past. Nothing…there was nothing out of
the ordinary. Where is it? Have to find it before…
There—a
rhythmic squeaking sound was moving away from her down an alley and out onto
another street. She squinted into the distance; the light wasn’t good in that
concrete-and-brick canyon. Just at the far end was the faint glow of a
streetlight. Ah, there—a boy on an old bike, not in any hurry, it seemed,
apparently oblivious to the horror hot on his trail. She felt that telltale
chill again, stronger now, wrinkled her nose at the unpleasant smell, and
looked around, eyes piercing the shadows. Nothing but the usual reeking garbage
and clutter tossed carelessly about or jammed against the wall.
A cat
yowled, dashing between her feet; she leaped aside, heart pounding. Good grief,
what next! She’d no more than restored her calm and resumed her dash down the
alley, when movement caught her eye, up ahead and off to the right a bit. Her
heart jerked into overdrive again; stake in hand, she was ready for business.
Just a rat, this time; it slithered behind a garbage can and was gone. She
exhaled slowly.
Then she
saw it. Even to her, the vampire looked like nothing more than a black blur, so
fast did it move. Most mortals wouldn’t have seen that much; would, in fact,
have had no warning at all.
She caught
a glimpse of the boy on the bike again, just as he was about to turn the corner
from the alley onto a quiet street. It looked as though he sensed something,
then; maybe he felt that chill cloud of gloom bearing down on him, for he
glanced back and stared. His eyes went wide with terror, and he surged into
action, pedaling at a furious rate, his bike squeaking madly.
He might
as well have been standing still; he’d never outrun the thing, Mara knew. It
would be on him before he reached the end of the block.
She swept
the surrounding area with a swift glance, missing nothing. Only one this time?
Vampires were loners, true, but perpetually hungry, and more often than not
several would emerge to hunt at any given time, to scatter in every direction,
no doubt to foil her attempts to catch them all. An exercise in futility; she
tracked them down quite quickly, as a rule.
No time to
think about that now. This one was the immediate danger, all that mattered at
the moment. Shadowy arms reached out toward its prey, long gleaming claws
reflecting the meager light. Too close. Fast as she was, she’d never catch up
in time to stake it.
She
slipped a hand inside her jacket, exchanged the stake for her small crossbow.
With narrowed eyes locked on that shadow-blur, she loosed an arrow. And
another, right behind it, in one swift motion. Two bolts! Overkill, maybe—she’d
never failed to hit her target dead-on, but—no, she couldn’t have that thing
take the boy down just because she got overconfident. She was good at this, but
vampires were fast and could kill in a heartbeat.
Her
bolts flew true; one-two, straight to the middle of that shadow-shape. It
shrieked, a long, pitiful wail, and fell writhing to the pavement. Then it
disintegrated.
The
boy glanced around, eyes huge, but he never slowed; sped up, if anything. That
spine-chilling cry must have scared him half to death, but Mara doubted he’d
seen anything, except maybe a cloud of dust if he was very sharp. He likely
hadn’t seen her either. Her black attire blended her into the shadows; she
wasn’t easy to see even when you knew she was there, and most people didn’t.
As
soon as the boy was away, down the street and around the next corner, she went
to retrieve her arrows. Her soft boots made no sound on the pavement.
The
evening breeze had picked up, wafting away the last bits of vampire dust. The
air smelled fresh and clean again. All clear now. Stars were out, sparkling
overhead. It was a nice night, after all. Even so, she did not relax her
vigilance. That could be fatal in her line of work. For others, if not herself.
She
was about to be on her way when she heard a fluttering sound. A paper loosely
tacked to the nearby wooden pole of a streetlight had torn loose at one corner
and was flapping in the breeze. On it was a grainy photograph and bold black
letters proclaiming: MISSING. Her heart sank. Not another one! She walked
nearer and reached up to smooth the poster. A new one, obviously, so clean and
white next to those other notices faded and tattered at the edges. Again some
vampire had slipped past, it seemed, despite her watchfulness, to prey on the
humans she was bound to protect.
How
did they manage to elude her? Was there another gate to the Underworld that she
didn’t know about, where they sneaked out a back door while she stood guard
here at the main gate? Father Mike had assured her that this insignificant
little town of Archangel was the gate; the only one, at this time. And he
should know.
Deep
in thought, she made her way to the public library, open late tonight, where
she had arranged to meet her friends to study. Despite her calling, she still
had to get through college.
Bio:
Mina Ambrose was born in Oregon, a cradle Catholic, and grew up on a
farm. Along with taking care of animals, she enjoyed reading, drawing and
painting, playing music (mainly accordion, but a smidgen of piano, organ and
guitar), and of course, writing. She began with stories and poems, as well as
jotting down pages of notes—ideas for novels that never went anywhere due to
the distractions of her many other interests. But she kept them on file and
took them out occasionally to dream.
At age 21 she moved to British Columbia with her family. There she
married, and for a number of years was raising children and running a busy
household, her other interests relegated to the back burner (though she took
them out and dusted them off occasionally). During this time she found new
interest in sewing, gardening, and baking dozens of cookies and muffins for her
growing family.
After her five sons and three daughters were grown, she returned to
college, determined to at least get her Bachelor of Arts degree. (And did.)
Meanwhile, she had a short story and poems published, and reawakened that
life-long dream of writing a novel. As she wrote, it grew and grew, until the
novel became a series: Shadows of the Sun. Moonchild Rising is
Mina’s first novel, Book One of the series.
Mina is a member of the local Art Society, Catholic Writers Guild and
the American Chesterton Society (as well as volunteer typist for their online
project), and has also been involved in the Pro-life movement for many years.
Mina has recently begun playing violin, and, since her retirement, once more
finds herself baking cookies, in order to have some on hand for when her
grandchildren come to visit. She lives surrounded by her eight adult children,
eighteen grandchildren and one great granddaughter.
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