For the beautiful, flame-haired, Lucinda Kate life is a continuous battle for survival in a world filled with secrets.
Luce loses her venture with fate when she finds herself captured by the demon king and forced to become a slave.
When Luce befriends another captive, the Mmsterious and aloof, Carter Thompson (a demon hunter) attracts Luce’s attention from the moment he rescues her from the malevolence invading their small town.
EXCERPT
There was nothing the least bit remarkable about the Art Gallery located on the corner of Third Street and Pine. And nothing particularly remarkable about the paintings displayed inside. For the most part, the artwork was uninspired scenes of landscapes and seascapes and an occasional still life, except for one rather large painting in the back of the gallery.
It depicted a tall, fair-haired man wandering in the moonlight through a wooded area that bordered a calm blue lake. The painting was aptly titled “Moonlight Walk”.
Lucinda Kate had never seen it before. The colors seemed to change depending on the time of day - the blues and greens and yellows bright and cheerful when she observed the painting during the afternoon, the hues more somber and subdued when she arrived at the gallery in the evening. The changes in hue were especially puzzling since they had nothing to do with the gallery’s lighting and seemed to be some anomaly inherent in the painting itself. An anomalous sensation drew Luce forward as if an invisible cord reached to pull her into that illusive world of canvas and oils.
Luce had the weirdest feeling that she knew the man in the painting, and continued to gaze up at him in an oddly mesmerized way trying to remember where she had seen him before. Just as she felt close to grasping onto the elusive memory, it seemed the sensuous lips in the painting quirked upward at their corners to flash her an encouraging little smile.
Tonight was no different. Luce stood in front of the mysterious painting, her gaze moving from the old rowboat tied up alongside the narrow wooden dock to the gray stone castle perched high atop a grassy hill. A shaggy black and white dog slept in the shade on the north side of the castle, a gray kitten frolicked in a bed of flowers. A lamp burned in an upstairs window. Swirls of blue-gray smoke curled up from one of the castle’s many chimneys. A white horse grazed in a large grassy field, its coat shining like silver in the moonlight. The horse looked so real, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see it galloping across the greensward.
Luce had visited the Witchburn gallery every night after work for the last week. And every night, the man in the painting had either been in a different pose or in a different location, first walking in the moon-shadowed woods, now fishing from the boat under a starry sky, now looking out at the night from one of the castle’s second-story windows, now resting on a large rock near the water, now sitting on the edge of the dock.
Tonight, he was astride the horse, his head turned to look back at the castle on the hill. Moonlight shimmered in his hair, which fell past his shoulders. He wore a loose-fitting white shirt, snug brown breeches, brown boots, and a long black cloak that fell in graceful folds over the horse’s hindquarters. His hair was dark blond, as were his brows above deep blue eyes. He had a short nose, a sensual mouth, a square jaw line. He was a remarkably handsome creature, and she often wondered if the artist had used a live model, or if the figure had been drawn from the artist’s imagination.
Luce moved closer to the painting, trying to determine how the figure of the man moved from place to place. So far, she hadn’t been able to determine how the artist had managed such a remarkable feat. At first, she had thought the man might not be a part of the painting itself, but perhaps a cutout figure that could be moved and posed at will. But she had quickly dismissed that idea. He had to be a part of the painting—nothing more. She wondered if the artist had painted several versions of the same scene and the gallery owner changed them from time to time, to mystify the public, but that hardly seemed likely.
The eyes of the painting followed her.
With a shake of her head, Lucinda glanced at her watch. The gallery would be closing in a few minutes. She could scarcely believe she had been standing in front of the painting for almost an hour!
When she looked back at the canvas, the man was staring at her.
Startled, Luce took a step backward, her eyes narrowing as she studied the face. His lips seemed to be moving, forming the words, “Help, Luce”.
That did it, she thought. She had lost mind. Painted figures did not move, nor did they speak. Filled with a sudden cold fear, Luce turned and ran out of the gallery.
Feeling breathless by the time she reached her car, she slide behind the wheel, and locked the door, and then drove home as if pursued by demons. It wasn’t until she was safely inside her own house, with the front door securely locked behind her, that sanity returned. She was behaving irrationally, letting her imagination get the best of her. People in paintings didn’t move. They certainly didn’t speak. Tomorrow, she would go back to the gallery and the man would be walking in the moonlit woods, where he belonged. He wouldn’t move, he wouldn’t look at her, and he definitely wouldn’t speak!
Blowing out a sigh, she went into the bathroom, turned on the water in the tub, and lit a blue candle. Blue, for serenity and harmony and to soothe a troubled mind. And her mind was more than troubled. It wasn’t sane to be so obsessed with a painting. As if that wasn’t bad enough that the man in the painting dominated her thoughts during the day, he had started haunting her dreams at night. With the candle glowing softly and the bathtub filled almost to over-flowing with fragrant bubbles, Luce stepped into the water for a long, leisurely soak. She had been worrying too much. That’s all it was, just stress combined with a vivid, over-active imagination.
She closed her eyes. It was only stress. Nothing to worry about. Luce blew out a sigh of relief. Stress over my father’s recent disappearance, she thought again. She wasn't going crazy after all.
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