A shape-shifter is murdering dwarves in a local colony, and Amanda, the Sibyl’s apprentice, agrees to find this assassin who hides in plain sight. When the renegade killer stalks her one night on the dwarf reservation, she knows this is her warning . . . next comes death.
To stay alive, Amanda must sharpen her psychic powers into mental weapons and flush out this cunning killer. She must also learn the secret her dwarf friends are keeping from her. Clues lie scattered in the Sibyl’s orchard, among a shaman’s stones, in a sacred blue crystal cavern, and inside a mountain fortress called Saint Peter’s Door.
When the unthinkable happens, she realizes her power is not strong enough to defeat this killer alone. She must unleash an ally, supernatural evil she might not be able to control. Then she must force it to fight the ruthless assassin for her?
Is she willing to risk the dwarf colony to protect a life more precious than her own?
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Filmy white curtains filtered the afternoon sunlight glazing Tristan’s lean features, blurring them to the smoothness of pale marble. I watched him sleep, my curly-bearded scholar with the sculpted physique of a Greek gymnast, though his body was now slightly emaciated by disease.
His feathered alarm clock, a snarky crow, was due to land any minute now in the red oak shading our driveway and crawk him awake. The bird’s flight plan included daily stops at our house for saltine crackers or stale brown bread. Tris called the little beggar Crow Magnon. I always did appreciate men with a sense of humor. When I first met Tris and laughed about his using a crow for his winged wake-up calls, he shrugged and said, “Why not? Time flies, right?”
But Tris also had a second crow in his life, one that wanted to shorten it. The bird was now perched on our bed’s mahogany headboard, and only a psychic like me could see it and know it for what it was: his death bird. Always present, it was as silent and relentless as his disease.
When it first appeared on Tristan’s head one evening while he lounged in our backyard, I thought he had tamed Crow Magnon. Then I looked through the phantom crow’s glass-bead eye and nearly fainted from grief. Two weeks later, an oncologist told Tris that cancer was eating away his stomach. I had been wondering what had happened to his appetite.
The deadly crow now tilted its head to one side and eyed me with a cruel, sadistic stare. What was Tristan to this bird—a job or a meal? Did it feed off its victim’s life energy? I would have cut off my left arm to wipe his death crow out of existence.
Outside, Crow Magnon crawked three times to announce his hungry arrival. “Nature calls,” I chirped.
Tris opened his eyes and grumped, "Your turn."
