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prologue

He watched the girl stu under the harsh lights of the parking lot Lightning flashed, illuure Tall and slender, barelyto be out alone in a place like this, on a night like this

Thunder ruhts flickered and buzzed Sheets of ice-cold rain battered the girl She kept walking, oblivious, as her long hair whipped against her face

She paid no attention to the stor across the road, watching

So young So confident So foolish

The girl stopped at her room and jammed the key into the lock When it didn't work the first tiered inside

So young So powerful And, at this moment, so broken

Perhaps he could use that

The girl had just solved thewomen in a nearby town On the surface, the deaths were unremarkable Humans killed one another all the time As it turned out, the first two fit the usual pattern--pointless deaths, tragic for a few, less to everyone else The third was different She'd been killed by a half-demon spirit, escaped from her hell di But the half-demon had help, powerful help, and her escape was yet another sign that what he'd foreseen was inevitable

For years, ns and portents The iic New races evolving within a generation Bitten olves passing their genes to their offspring A clairvoyant of unsurpassed power, born from a dead mother As one who had observed for millennia, he knew these were not new occurrences Merely rare Yet with so many in quick succession, even the demonic and the celestial had taken note Sorowing unrest

Nowunder one e the world Or destroy it The demonic and the celestial took note of that, too They whispered They conspired They chose a side

The girl in theof this She'd sent the half-demon shade back to her hell and considered the matter closed, except for the details that obsessed her now, ones that had nothing to do with the gathering storm

Before the half-de world, she'd exacted revenge by telling the authorities who'd killed the first two young wole, the gun goes off It concerned hiirl in the motel room She'd been the one who learned the truth The half-deirl couldn't stop thinking about the wo about the child, alone now, randmother accused of her murder

It s In a few days, the girl in thein the supernatural world She would play a role A critical role A dangerous role