There Will Be Demons: The Phoenix Chronicles

By Lori Handeland

Enter a world where darkness reigns and demons lurk in the shadows . . .

 

I am a member of a clandestine organization dedicated to hunting the Nephilim, supernatural creatures hell-bent on unleashing the apocalypse. When battling the supernatural, it's advisable to keep a bit of magic in your pocket, the kind that a fallen angel become earthbound fairy like me, Summer Bartholomew, can wield.

 

The arrival of Jimmy Sanducci, a man I've seen and loved in my dreams for centuries, but never met, with orders to confront an ancient and powerful skinwalker, tests the bonds of a friendship forged in fire and threatens a love that could defy time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lori Handeland
• Release date: May 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798990687301

Lori Handeland

Lori Handeland is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with more than 60 published works of fiction to her credit. Her novels, novellas, and short stories span genres from paranormal and urban fantasy to historical romance. After a quarter-century of success and accolades, she began a new chapter in her career. Marking her women’s fiction debut, Just Once (Severn House, January 2019) is a richly layered novel about two women who love the same man, how their lives intertwine, and their journeys of loss, grief, sacrifice, and forgiveness. While student teaching, Lori started reading a life-changing book, How to Write a Romance and Get It Published. Within its pages. the author, Kathryn Falk, mentioned Romance Writers of America. There was a local chapter; Lori joined it, dived into learning all about the craft and business, and got busy writing a romance novel. With only five pages completed, she entered a contest where the prize was having an editor at Harlequin read her first chapter. She won. Lori sold her first novel, a western historical romance, in 1993. In the years since then, she has written eleven novels in the popular Nightcreature series, five installments in the Phoenix Chronicles, six works of spicy contemporary romance about the Luchettis, a duet of Shakespeare Undead novels, and many more books. Her fiction has won critical acclaim and coveted awards, including two RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America for Best Paranormal Romance (Blue Moon) and Best Long Contemporary Category Romance (The Mommy Quest), a Romantic Times Award for Best Harlequin Superromance (A Soldier’s Quest), and a National Reader’s Choice Award for Best Paranormal (Hunter’s Moon). Lori Handeland lives in Southern Wisconsin with her husband. In between writing and reading, she enjoys long walks with their rescue mutt, Arnold, and occasional visits from her two grown sons and her perfectly adorable grandson.

Book preview

There Will Be Demons

THERE WILL BE DEMONS

A PHOENIX CHRONICLE SHORT STORY

LORI HANDELAND

CONTENTS

There Will Be Demons

Dear Reader/Free Story

About the Author

More Books by Lori?

Copyright

THERE WILL BE DEMONS

I’d been out all night shooting trolls with salt—straight through the heart; it’s the only thing that kills them. So when the knock came on my motel-room door before I’d even had a chance to wash their ashes out of my hair, I should have ignored it.

Except no one knew I was in Minnesota, which made me nervous. Though demons rarely knock.

However, when I peered into the peephole and saw a wide expanse of nothing, I whirled to the right expecting the imminent arrival of a shotgun-sized hole through the door. Not that a shotgun filled with anything but rowan or iced steel would kill me but getting shot hurt.

Every single damn time.

The knock came again—louder, more insistent. Housekeeping or management would announce themselves. They also wouldn’t stand out of sight of the peephole. Only someone who didn’t want me to see them would. Unless it was someone I couldn’t see.

I didn’t like that scenario any better than the first one. But since I couldn’t stay where I was listening, hiding, practically cringing—it wasn’t my style—I flung open the door and spewed fairy dust from my fingertips, even as my mind formed the words reveal and freeze.

No demon materialized in front of me. That was good. Then someone coughed, and I jerked my head to the left.

His face was covered in silvery particles that stuck to his long, dark lashes like goo. His ebony hair appeared to have been dusted with snow. His face sparkled as if he’d been doused in glitter. He should be frozen like a gargoyle. Instead, he lifted one hand and wiped at the mess, staring first at his palm then lifting his dark eyes to mine.

A shudder ran through me. I’d seen those eyes before. Every night in my dreams for the last few thousand years.

"What are you?" he asked.

What are you?

My hands shook. I stuck them behind my back so I wouldn’t have to explain why. I wasn’t sure I could. I’d been dreaming of him for so long, I’d begun to think he wasn’t real, that maybe what I’d seen wouldn't happen, that what I’d done wouldn’t matter. I should have known better.

Name’s Sanducci. Jimmy.

He hadn’t really answered my question, but I hadn’t answered his either.

I might have dreamed of him until I knew his face, and his body, better than I knew my own, but I’d never learned his name or figured out what, exactly, he was.

Despite being tall, at least six feet of rangy muscle, and owning eyes that were haunted with things he would much, much rather forget, he seemed young.

Of course to someone like me, Methuselah was a toddler. Or at least he had been when I’d met him. By the time the old guy expired, right