Sentence Sneak Peek - Watcher of the Dark

The first sentence from each chapter of Watcher of the Dark, it's a mini summary of what you can expect to read.

* Provided by the publisher for review
* Spoilers are highlighted like so :)

“I bolted awake in the shitty little motel room I’d been calling home for the last three weeks, with my heart jack-hammering in my chest and my skin coated with a thin sheen of sweat.”

“There’s nothing that hones your reaction time like living with the constant fear of discovery, especially when you know that those chasing you are more apt to shoot first and ask ques-tions later.”

“I thought I’d been pretty smart, pacing out that distance and knowing exactly how far I had to go if the shit hit the fan.”

“I’d gotten a look at my latest assailant before my link with the dead girl dissolved permanently and, to my surprise, he was fully human.”

“While we were holed up in the safe house outside of Atlantic City after fleeing Boston, Denise began teaching me how to better understand and control the strange talents I’d gained in the aftermath of the Preacher’s ritual to “see the unseen.”

“Yes and no,” Fuentes said, and I could imagine him rocking his hand in a comme ci, comme ça movement as he did so.”

“Fuentes had my balls in a vise.”

“Of all the places I might have considered as a possible destina-tion for our little outing, a church was not one of them.”

“The stairs were narrow, so we went down them in single file.”

“The spectre let out a bloodthirsty shriek of outrage and dove toward me, its body morphing as it came.”

“The next  couple of days passed without incident.”

“We piled into the Charger just as we had the other night, ex-cept this time it was Rivera behind the wheel instead of Perkins.”

“Perkins stepped forward and stood in the center of the room.”

“In the end, it really didn’t take us very long to do as he’d asked.”

“The next day Fuentes put me to work on one of his crews, hauling construction supplies from one job site to the next.”

“Lend me your eyes,” I asked her.”

“The chill woke me from a deep sleep.”

“Fuentes didn’t have anything on deck for us the next day, so I used the morning to do a little legwork of my own.”

“The sun was going down by the time I made it back to Fuen-tes’s estate.”

“. . . only to find myself behind the wheel of the Charger I don’t know how much later.”

“Durante,” I said, without hesitation.”

“Dawn was edging its way over the horizon when I stepped back inside my bungalow.”

“We retired to the poolroom where Grady had found me talk-ing with Perkins a few days before.”

“How in hell’s name did I end up in bed with Ilyana?”

“I blinked several times, unable to speak.”

“I pretended to feel my way downstairs and reached the car in time to witness the end of an argument between Rivera and Grady.”

“. . . I surged up from a prone position with the remains of a scream fading from my lips.”

“I had the cabbie drop me off down the street from the prop-erty and walked the rest of the way, slipping through the trees until I reached the back wall and then going over the top to keep from being seen by the guards at the gate.”

“That’s how I ended up riding in the passenger seat of Denise’s Charger as Rivera retraced almost the exact same route the cabbie had taken to bring me back just a hour or so again, but in reverse.”

“Rivera was growing impatient at my lack of response, so I figured I’d better say something before he totally lost it.‘

“The Preacher was waiting for me when I got back to my bun-galow later that morning.”

“Midafternoon found me, Rivera, and Ilana back on the street, rousting anyone we thought might have some information about the Key or Grady’s prior affiliations before coming to “work” for Fuentes.”

“I went back over everything that had happened to me since I’d fled the hospital that night in New Orleans: the long, ram-bling drive across the country with stops here and there to deal with some errant spirits, my arrival in Los Angeles and the weeks spent lying low, the discovery by Fuentes’s cronies and his successful attempt to shanghai me into service by threatening Denise’s and Dmitri’s lives.”

“Later that night I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom of the bungalow Fuentes had assigned to me, watching my reflection, hoping to catch a glimpse, just as I had a few nights before, of the rider I was carrying.”

“My intention was to slip off the property, grab a cab to the place where Durante had hidden the final portion of the Key, and return with it before anyone even knew I was gone.”

“Once the decision had been made to meet with Bergman, Fuentes kept the three of us busy throughout the rest of the afternoon, which proved even more frustrating than the morn-ing had been.”

“The sign.”

“The warehouse chosen for the meeting stood by itself at the end of a long pier opposite a massive container ship.”

“When I came to I found I was lying on the floor in the corner of the warehouse, my hands and feet trussed like a Christmas turkey with bailing rope and my head pounding as if the entire drum line of the John Sousa Marching Band was parading through my skull.”

“I laid there stunned, not quite believing my eyes.”

“The Preacher walked up until he stood just a few feet away from the gate and casually examined those of us on the other side.”

“The sun was still below the horizon by the time we reached our destination in the desert outside of Palm Springs.”