Twilight Prophecy

MIRA
May 2011
ISBN 978-0-7783-2980-0

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According to ancient prophecy, there's only one chance to avert the complete annihilation of the Undead.  Twins James William and Brigit Pie, part human, part vampire, believe that they are that chance.  In truth, the key lies with the reclusive--and mortal--scholar Lucy Lanfair.

As Armageddon approaches, antivampire sentiment fuels a war neither side can win, driving James to abandon his moral code and draw Lucy into a deadly battle she wants no part of.

But Lucy soon realizes that she holds this powerful immortal's soul in her hands and that it's her destiny not only to stop a war but to save him from his inner darkness.  If she fails, his race will die--and so will her heart.  Is the power of love strong enough to save the world?

Reviews

"Once again I wish there were more than five stars to rate an Author's work. Maggie Shayne did not disappoint me. Her novel, Twilight Prophecy / Children of Twilight Series is fantastic!!!!  The story rolls out like peanut butter on bread. Just as you don't want to miss an inch of bread with peanut butter; you don't want to miss a single word of her novel. Maggie, you've done it again!!!! This is a novel for young and old alike. Woo Hoo!!!" -- Ursshebear, Night Owl Reviews

"This book is truly for fans of Maggie Shayne's writing styles as in parts are similar to her other Twilight writings." -- The Phantom Paragrapher

"Twilight Prophecy by Maggie Shayne is another winner for this remarkable writer.  I simply love the connectivity between her characters, as they “feed” off of each other on so many levels.  I have enjoyed this series that Shayne has written, the continuity of the storyline as well as her references and inclusions of possible historical occurrences flesh out a different background to the well known "Vampire" Community.  With her marvelous style meshing paranormal romance and action Shayne keeps her readers riveted with excitement waiting to discover what will be uncovered next. The interactions of characters both new and familiar keep you enthralled throughout the entirety story.  All Maggie Shayne readers will be delighted with this new installment to a much loved series! I encourage anyone who hasn’t picked up one of Maggie Shayne’s books to do so, it will be a journey you won’t forget!" -- Mona, Rex Robot Reviews

"A vampire tale of adventure and romance that definitely stands out among the rest! Twilight Prophecy is a winner for anyone who craves excitement, twists and turns and a romance with great sexual tension in their books. The story is fast paced and will keep you guessing. Maggie Shayne's writing is addicting and will leave you wanting more! Although part of a series, this book can easily be read as a stand alone." -- Lori, Romancing the Darkside

"The story line is fast-paced and filled with action...  Readers will enjoy this engaging entry, which sets up nicely the next confrontation." -- Harriet Klausner, Genre Go Round Reviews

"TWILIGHT PROPHECY presented a surprisingly unique twist to vampire lore. Maggie Shayne's blend of ancient civilization history and present day vampires was magnificent! I absolutely loved the new legends that Shayne presented in this book. The history of vampires has almost always followed a certain path. Mixing Sumerian legends and twisting them for her own purposes was simply brilliant. TWILIGHT PROPHECY is a definite addition to my collection and those of vampire lovers everywhere." -- Heather Lobdell, Fresh Fiction

"You know that a book is going to be good when only a few chapters in, you think to yourself that it sure would be nice if your Kindle were waterproof so that you wouldn’t have to put the book down long enough to take a shower. True story.  Overall, a very solid read that won’t leave newcomers scratching their heads, and I’m looking forward to reading the next installment to the series. 4/5 Stars."" -- The Romanceaholic

"While this book is part of a long ongoing series, I had no trouble picking it up and understanding the world and all of the character's roles. It works very well as a stand alone novel, and tied things up well for the hero and heroine at the end. However, it did leave an almost cliffhanger aspect involving the overall plot that I am sure will be continued in the next book. The cliffhanger wasn't enough to frustrate me with the wait, it was more along the lines of an enticement to want to pick up the next one. I actually like this as I sometimes need a little nudge to pick up the next book in series where the main focus of hero/heroine switches, as I am always attacked to the previous ones. All in all it was a very good read with a realistic romance that will leave you wanting more in the end." -- KT, A Book Obsession

"Considering this is the thirtieth or so book in the series, it was remarkably easy to follow. I didn't feel like it was part of a series and certainly not so far into a series.  Nor did I feel I was being dragged through a back-story. That's a tough move to execute and so it attests to Shayne's skill. " -- Steph, Fangs, Wands & Fairy Dust

"This spellbinding story is a great, imaginative addition to Shayne’s vampire stories." -- Susan Mobley, RT Book Club

"I LOVED this book. It has everything. Drama. Romance. Action. Mystery. It really made you want to keep turning the page.  I gave it five out of five stars. This book series is fast paced, easy to follow, action packed, and enough romance tension to make you want to squeal. This book will not disappoint the paranormal or romance book lover. It has enough romance to interest you, but tons of twist and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time.  I’m going to have to go back and read all of her Wings in the Night Series!!  I can’t wait for the next book to come out in October!"  -- Reflections of a Neurotic Writer

"Maggie Shayne's Twilight Prophecy is WONDERFUL. She carefully and artfully blends history with her imagination to tell the compelling, riveting story of a race on the brink of an apocalypse, and likely, extinction. These vampires do not glitter in the sun, they do not stalk teenager girls whilst asleep. Oh no, these vampires are real. And they live undetected among you and I, eking out an existence by pretending to be the very people they are not.   What I truly loved is that Shayne takes characters, and certainly, villains, from our history and tells us, "They are not what you think."  Maggie Shayne crafts a story of a race against time & history that is so well done, you just might stop to think that anything's possible.
I really enjoyed this story and I can't wait for the next book in the series!" -- Jennifer, The Bawdy Book Blog

Excerpt

Copyright Notice: This excerpt is protected by US Copyright Law.  That means you can’t copy it in any form for any reason whatsoever without express permission from the author.  No cutting and pasting, no posting online, no printing up and passing around.  Giving credit doesn’t count.  You have to get permission.

TWILIGHT PROPHECY

By Maggie Shayne

Chapter One

James dressed in white.  White lab coat, white scrubs, white cross-trainers.  Sometimes he broke it up with a colored shirt, but for these visits, he mostly stuck with white.  Made him fit in.

That was important to him.  Fitting in.  Though deep down, he knew he didn’t.  Not anywhere.  He was one of a kind.  One of a pair, really, but even his twin was his opposite.

Fitting in here though, or at least, projecting the appearance of doing so, was necessary.  A matter of life and death, and maybe part of the elusive thing he’d been seeking his entire life.  A reason for his existence. 

He nodded in a friendly, confident way to the people he passed in the antiseptic, cluttered corridors of Childrens’ Hospital of New York.  It was a busy place, even after visiting hours.  As soon as there was a long enough break in the traffic, James ducked into one of the patient rooms.

And then he paused and went silent as he turned to look. 

There, asleep in the bed, lay a little girl who slept with a knit hat pulled down over her head to cover the fact that she had no hair.  No eyebrows, though that was harder to hide, despite the dimness of the room.  There was sickly sweet scent clinging to her, the scent of cancer.  And while most human beings wouldn’t have been able to detect it, he could.  He wasn’t entirely human, after all, much as he hated to admit that.   Vampiric blood ran in his veins, heightening his senses beyond reason.  So he smelled the cancer, mingling with the stronger scents of antibiotics and the iodine concoction that stained her skin near every puncture wound.  The little girl’s arms looked as if they’d been used for pincushions.  It was after nine p.m. and she was asleep, her body exhausted.  Her spirit, worn down.  Her name was Melinda.  She was ten years old.  And she was terminal.

His eyes on the sleeping child, he moved closer to the bed where she slept.  Watching her, keeping his steps silent, he reached out his open hands to lay them gently on the center of her chest, palms down, thumbs touching.  He closed his eyes, and opened his heart.

“Doctor?” a woman asked. 

James opened his eyes, but didn’t move his hands.  He hadn’t noticed the woman sitting beside the bed.  Hadn’t even checked to be sure the room was empty.  This little girl had been his entire focus.  And he thought that for as long as he’d been sneaking in and out of hospital rooms by night, he really ought to know better.

He just got so caught up in his work . . . .

“What are you doing?” the woman asked.

He smiled, and met the woman’s eyes, willing the unnatural glow in his own to bank itself, to hide from her.  “Just feeling her heartbeat.”

The woman--the little girl’s mother--lifted her brows.  He saw her clearly, despite the darkness of the room.  “Isn’t that what your stethoscope is for?”

“Do you mind if I finish?”  He inserted authority into his tone this time.  That’s what a real doctor would do after all.  “You’re welcome to stay, but I do need silence.”

Frowning, Melinda’s mother rose from her chair to watch him.  He kept his hands on the girl, and felt them growing warmer, knew that soon he would give himself away.  He had to distract her.  “Would you mind getting me her chart?  It’s over on her nightstand, I believe.”

Nodding, though still very suspicious of him, she moved to the nightstand.  And James let the power he’d felt rising up in him, move through him, into his hands, and into the child.  A soft golden-yellow glow emanated from his palms for a long moment, and he let it go on, not stopping it, even when he knew the mother was turning back toward him.  Even when he knew she’d seen, by her sharp gasp.

The power would flow as long as it needed to.  Sometimes it took a second, sometimes a minute.  But only it knew when it was finished.

“What is that?” the woman asked.  “What the hell are you doing?”

“Shhh,” he whispered.  “Just a moment, please.”

“A moment, my ass, who are you?  Why haven’t I seen you before?  What’s your name?”

The light beamed brighter.

“God, what is that?”  And then she was striding to the door, flinging it open.  “Help!  Someone help me, there’s a stranger in here and he’s--”

He lost her words in the softness of the hum that filled his head then.  It was a vibration, a harmonic tone that made his entire body vibrate in resonance with it, and it felt like . . . well, he couldn’t describe what it felt like.  Never had been able to.  But he thought it must be what it felt like for one’s soul to leave one’s body at death and to emerge into oneness with the Universe.  It felt like bliss and perfection and wonder and ecstasy. 

The glow died.  His hands cooled.  A nurse came running, and the room’s lights came on.  Blinding and harsh.  As he lifted his head and finally refocused on the here and the now, he became aware of several people standing in the doorway, frozen, in that suspended moment before action set in. 

But his main focus was on the little girl.  Her eyes were open and staring into his, and she knew.  He knew she knew.  The exchange between them was real, and utterly silent, and overloaded with meaning.  And while she might not be able to describe it or explain it or even understand it, on a soul deep level, she knew what had just happened between them.  He smiled warmly and gave a nod of affirmation, and he saw the relief, and then the joy in her eyes.

She smiled back at him and then someone was grabbing him, pulling his arms behind his back, and holding them there, while another someone snatched the name badge from the lapel of his white coat and said, “Call the police.”

“The police are already here,” said another voice, a dearly familiar female one. “He’s been lurking around here for awhile,” she explained.  “Someone already called it in.  Come on, buddy.  Let’s you and I have a little talk in private.” 

“I want to know what this was all about,” the mother demanded.

“Can I see some I.D?” one of the nurses said at the same time.  She was addressing the female “officer.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Brigit said, her impatience palpable.  “How about I get him out of the poor kid’s room first, huh?  I’ll need to question each of you just as soon as I have him securely tucked away in the back seat of my car.  Do not go anywhere.” 

She moved behind James as she spoke, and he felt metal on his wrists, then heard the tell-tale click of handcuffs snapping tight.  She certainly was pouring it on.  She took him by an elbow, and turned to lead him out of little Melinda’s room.  As the door swung closed behind him, that tiny, beautiful voice said,  “It’s okay, Mamma.  I think he was a angel.  Not the kind that comes to take you away. The kind that comes to make you better.”

He smiled as he heard those words.  Yes.  This must be his purpose.  It was the only thing that gave him any pleasure at all in this isolated, lonely life of his.  Using his healing gift to spare the innocent.

Then his captor shoved him into the elevator, and they rode in silence to the ground floor.  He looked her up and down.  Her Goldilocks curls were bundled up tight, and her pale blue eyes, with their ebony rings, refused to meet his.  When the elevator’s doors opened, she escorted him unceremoniously outside to her waiting car, where she opened the passenger side door. 

He got in.  She went around, got behind the wheel and started the engine.  Then she reached into one of the two cup holders in the console between the bucket seats, and lifted a key from one of them.  The other held a rolled up magazine.  “Turn toward the door,” she ordered.

James turned toward the passenger side window, so his back and cuffed wrists faced her.  She inserted the key, twisted it, and the cuffs sprang free.  But even as he brought his hands around in front of him, he saw one of the nurse’s from Melinda’s room coming out the hospital doors, frowning as she moved toward the car.

“Incoming,” he muttered.

And then the nurse was tapping on Brigit’s window.

Brigit rolled it down in the middle of the nurse’s “I knew it!  You’re not a cop at all, you’re--”

Brigit released a growl like that of a panther about to strike.  Not human, that sound.  It sent chills up even James’ spine, and he knew she’d exposed her fangs and probably showed her glowing eyes as well.

The nurse backed away from the car so fast she fell on her ass, and then Brigit hit the gas and they pulled away, tires squealing before catching pavement and launching the T-bird into motion.

“That was unnecessary.”

She glanced his way, fangs still visible, eyes still aglow.  “Says who?”

“Says me. And will you put those damned things away?”

She shrugged, but relaxed enough to let the razor sharp incisors retract.  Her eyes returned to their normal striking ice-blue shade.  “So are you done bitching now?  Ready to throw in a ‘hi, sis.  Thanks for saving my ass back there.  Great to see you again.’? ”

 He sighed, shaking his head.  “It is good to see you again, little sister.  How are you?”

“I’m good.  So far.  And you?”

“Fine.”

“Typical.  One-word answers always were your thing.  And I see you’re still trying out ways to use your gift.  You decide to eradicate death altogether now, or just for those you deem too young to die?”

He lowered his head.  “I didn’t need your help, you know.  I do this sort of thing all the time.”

“I know you do.  Unlike you, big bother, I care enough to keep track of my kin.”

He closed his eyes.  “I’d see you more often if you didn’t give me this lecture every single freaking time.”

“What lecture?  The one about abandoning your family?  About turning your back on what you truly are, J.W.?”

“It’s James.”

“It’s J.W.  It’s always been J.W. and it’ll always be J.W.”

“And I didn’t abandon my family or turn my back on what I am.”

“No?  And when’s the last time you exposed your fangs, J.W.?  When’s the last time you tasted human blood?”

The last time . . . it had been when the two of them, he and his twin sister, had been adolescents, and their honorary “aunt” Rhiannon had insisted they imbibe.  From a glass, not a warm pulsing throat.  And it had repulsed him.

“You’re even lying to yourself,” Brigit said.  “It was delicious.  Heady.  Addictive.  It set your soul on fire and left you craving more, and you know it as well as I do.”

He was startled, but only briefly.  “I’ve grown unused to being around someone who can read my every thought.”

“Yeah, well, who’s fault is that?”

“Look, I admit, the blood was . . . appealing.  That’s what repulsed me.  I don’t want to be that.  And I’m not denying who I am, I’m choosing who I want to be, even while searching for the answers as to why I’m here, why I was given this power.”  He turned his palms up and stared at them as he had so often throughout his life. 

“You’ve always been so sure there was a reason,” she said softly.

“I know there’s a reason, Brigit.”

She nodded, still driving.  “Well, I hate to admit this, bro, but you’re right.  There is a reason.  And I have recently discovered what it is.”

He stared at his beautiful twin, his opposite in almost every way. And yet they were the only two of their kind.  He stared at her, certain she was kidding at first, because she had always teased and taunted him about his yearning for meaning, his quest for understanding.  His innate sense of goodness and morality.  But she didn’t smile or laugh at him this time.  And her face was stone serious.

“You think you know why we were born?”

“Yeah.  And it’s not to run along the seashore revivifying dead starfish and tossing them back into the waves like you did when we were kids, or to cure little girls with cancer.”  She licked her lips and shot him a quick look.  “That’s what you did, just now, isn’t it?  Cured her?”

He felt warm all over, and his smile was genuine.  “Yeah.  She’s gonna be just fine.”

Brigit’s lips pulled upward too, before she bit back the smile and put her trademark stern expression back in place.  She was a hard ass.  Or at least, she liked people to think she was.  They’d played these roles all their lives, and he often wondered why she’d taken to hers as easily as he had taken to his. 

His was easy.  He was the Good Twin.  The healer.  The Golden Child. 

Hers was a harder role to embrace.  She was the bad twin.  The destroyer, in a manner of speaking.  And she’d never even complained about being so labeled, seemed mostly to try to live up to the tag, or rather, to live down to it.

“Well?” he asked at length.  “Are you going to tell me?”

“I think I have to show you.”  She nodded at the magazine that was rolled up and tucked into the cup holder between them. 

He sighed, about to argue with her, but when he met her eyes, he found them open, and her mind, behind her eyes, open as well.  Nothing hidden, no barriers, which was a very rare thing for his sister.  He narrowed his eyes, and felt only sincerity coming from her.  No pretense, no hidden motives. 

“The end of the world is coming, my brother.  It’s coming, and we’re the only ones who can prevent it.  That’s why we were born.  To save our entire race. Read the article while I drive.  The page is folded over.  I just hope we’re not already too late.”

“Too late?”

“I think it’s going to start tonight,” she told him.

He shook his head, still not following.  “You think what’s going to start tonight?”

Brigit licked her thick scarlet stained lips and sighed.  “Armageddon.  At least for our kind, and maybe for theirs too.”

“We’re one quarter human, Brigit.  Their kind is our kind.”

“Fuck their kind.” Her eyes flashed angrily. 

She’d spent far too much time with Rhiannon, he thought. 

“Either way,” she went on.  This might be it for everyone.  Unless we do something about it.”  She looked at her watch.  “In the next forty-five minutes, as a matter of fact.”

“And where, exactly, is Armageddon going to break out in forty-five minutes?”

“Manhattan,” she said.  “At a taping of the Will Waters Show.”  She looked his way again and caught him staring at her as if she’d been speaking in tongues.  “Will you just read the damned article?  And buckle up.  We’ve got to move.”

Frowning he buckled, then opened the copy of J.A.N.E Magazine to an article about a recently translated Sumerian clay tablet, written by someone by the name of Professor Lucy Lanfair.  He found himself stuck on the tiny headshot of the professor herself, almost unable to tear his eyes away to read the piece that had his sister so wound up.  It seemed as if her brown eyes were staring straight off the page and directly into his soul.

Brigit pressed harder on the accelerator, and the car’s powerful engine roared like a vampire about to feed.