QSFer Amy Allen has a new FF paranormal romance out – A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing.
Harper Zeale is finally taking up the family business—hunting supernatural threats. One of her first jobs is to solve the murder of a girl at Malcolm-Baptiste College, a small school in central Illinois. It’s obvious the killer was a werewolf, but Esther Talbot—the only werewolf around—is a harmless puppy who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Without any leads to follow, Harper enlists the help of Esther and her friends in the search for the killer. All she has to do is keep them all alive, keep her dangerous instincts in check, and keep a lid on her foolish crush.
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Excerpt
Harper Zeale received the official request to track and kill a vampire the morning of her twenty-first birthday.
As soon as she had reached Chicago, she headed for the local guild headquarters. Since you couldn’t just advertise Hey, we track down supernatural threats! to the general public, standard operating procedure was to create some kind of front. The Chicago Silversmiths, for example, styled themselves as an incredibly boring patent law office. There wasn’t even any large signage, just a single tiny bronze plaque above the door that read “Shelley and Stoker.” Presumably one of the branch’s founders thought themselves very clever.
Stepping inside, she approached the modest L-shaped desk where a receptionist sat typing away at an ancient computer. She glanced up at Harper, who probably didn’t look like either a future patent-holder or a traditional hunter. Her usual style included a leather jacket, a tank top, one of many flannels wrapped around her hips, and Chuck Taylors. Her undercut ginger hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail.
The receptionist, whose nameplate identified her as Sharon Myers, pursed her lips, studying Harper. Eventually she just shrugged and launched into the standard excuse for the uninitiated who walked in blindly. “Sorry, I’m afraid we’re all booked up.”
It took some fishing around inside her ratty brown messenger bag before Harper was able to pull out her laminated ID card. “I’ve got an appointment with Mr. Stoker,” she said as she passed it off to her.
Sharon plucked the card from Harper’s hand and looked it over with a small nod. “Ah, looks like congratulations are in order, Ms. Zeale. Finally getting turned loose?”
Once the ID was returned to her, Harper popped it back into her bag. “Yup. Big day. Are our guests from last night’s raid still here?”
Sharon pressed a button somewhere behind the desk and another door at the other end of the small reception area buzzed, followed by the sound of a heavy metallic ka-chunk. “Stairwell at the end of the hall. That’ll take you down to the basement level. The lounge is the first door on the left. One of the vampires was pretty close to feral, so he’s sedated and under heavy guard. But the other two are fairly lucid. Good luck, Harper.” That last bit was refreshingly sincere.
“Thanks,” she said softly before heading for the door.
Harper found the stairwell and descended, occasionally taking the steps two at a time. Whether it was excitement or nerves—possibly both—she was feeling energized. She stepped through the double doors at the bottom of the stairs, which opened onto the basement hallway.
Farther down was another set of double doors with a brick shithouse of a man standing guard over them, most likely a guild Shield. He was wearing a black suit that strained against his form. She could only assume one of the rooms beyond held the sedated vamp. You couldn’t get much from an unconscious witness, so she focused on finding the other two.
A door to her right was labeled as a unisex bathroom, and the one on her left had a worn-out plastic plaque identifying it as the lounge Sharon had mentioned. Harper paused just long enough to give the Shield a quick nod before stepping inside the room on the left. She immediately thought that “lounge” was a generous description. The floor was gray linoleum, the walls a faded robin-egg blue. What few windows the place had were draped with heavy blackout curtains, so the only lighting came from the lightly buzzing fluorescents overhead. Only the occasional support pillar broke up the otherwise monotonous space.
There was a modest seating area with a couch, some padded wooden chairs, a mini fridge, and a television attached to the wall that was currently off. A girl who couldn’t have been more than eighteen was perched in one of the chairs, one leg tucked up under her, the other propped up with an arm around it, holding her phone as she idly scrolled. Her free hand held a medical blood bag, already half-drained, which she occasionally took a sip from like it was a juice pouch.
Draped across the couch was a man in his midforties who could have been mistaken for someone nursing a hangover. His head was propped up on a ratty throw pillow, left arm resting across his upper face. Newly turned vampires tended to go through a bout of sensory overload, so he was likely trying to block out the lighting, dim as it was. With his free hand, he reached out and fumblingly opened the mini fridge to pull out a fresh blood bag. The door had swung too wide, and he made a few feeble attempts at closing it again. The girl eventually took pity, freeing her propped leg just long enough to knock it closed before returning to her comforting posture.
Harper approached cautiously, fully aware that she was about to press her way into an extremely tenuous situation. Then again, that was a pretty accurate description of her entire job, so she knew she would have to get used to that. “Excuse me?”
The young girl looked over and gave her a weak smile. “They got you too, huh?”
Author Bio
Amy Allen was almost a pastor, in a previous life. Obviously that didn’t work out so well. But after a few years spent writing mostly fan fiction and itty-bitty short stories, she got brave enough to try her hand at writing something bigger. Lo and behold, people liked it, so here she is now.
Amy is a trans woman who lives in Virginia with her brother and their two cats. She currently works in a used book store, surrounded by giants whose shoulders she longs to stand on. When she’s not writing or working, she plays an unwise amount of video games and tabletop RPGs, and volunteers at a local museum. From time to time, she even manages to read a few books.