Death Magic
by Eileen Wilks

It was white. Maybe that’s why she immediately thought ghost. It drifted on a diagonal like three-dimensional rice paper—translucent, not transparent, its edges too clearly defined for smoke, its shape vaguely human but faceless. It floated on a steady, nonexistent air current, starting at the left-rear of the range . . . and coming straight at her.

The quick clamp of fear, irrational and immediate, stiffened her spine as it widened her eyes. As the thing floated closer it stretched out a hand—and yes, it was a hand. For all the vagueness of the rest of the form, that milky hand was painstakingly clear, from the mound at the base of the thumb to the lines crossing the palm to the band of a ring on the third finger. A hand, palm up. Beseeching.

Eileen Wilks' Bio

Eileen Wilks is the NYT best-selling author of over thirty books and novellas, including her World of the Lupi series. A multiple RITA finalist and recipient of a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, she’s currently hard at work on the tenth book in the series, RITUAL MAGIC.

Eileen came to writing the usual way: by reading compulsively and daydreaming a lot. She likes quilting, dark matter, chocolate, books on brain science, yoga (even though she's not good at it), and painting things—walls, boxes, furniture, floors, even canvases sometimes . . . but not the cats. The cats do not wish to be painted.