Three Doors, One Stupid Rulebook and 12 Weeks to Save a Poet's Broken Heart...
Serena White loved her life. It was safe and pleasant, even if it was a little uninspiring. But when it abruptly ends, she finds herself in an unwelcoming tunnel where a rude, hooded figure tells her to choose a door quickly and be gone: blue for the haughty and red for the naughty. Don't ask about the white one. It is not important.
With only a rulebook and twelve weeks to prove her worth, Serena is swiftly dispatched to the afterlife, to a safe house in a sleepy English seaside town. The same world she has just left behind, populated by the same creed of twisted hustlers and feckless dupes. Only this time, people glow - not all, just some, the ones worth saving or capturing. Serena soon discovers an aura so bright it is almost blinding.
Jayden Lowe, devilishly desirable, a poet of extraordinary talent and exquisite charm, is being hunted by demons, and they are already closing in on the poet's soul to extinguish the bright, pure light within him forever. Jayden's one hope for survival rests upon the callow shoulders of a ditzy blonde, a rookie just as spellbound by him as she is by the beautiful demon hunting his soul.
Click for Chapter 1
Monsters & Angels
'Next.'
Okay, that's me.
Only I'm not okay.
I'm dead.
That's not good.
It's not good at all.
Even though she had been un-alive for less than one other-side hour, Serena White knew being… dead wasn't for her. She hated to think what she looked like. She imagined pale, drawn, withered. The queue stretched long into the gloom behind her. Even though she couldn't see curved concrete above her, it felt like she was in some kind of endless tunnel, but the shadows were too thick to discern any structure. Strikingly, there were no fluffy clouds or shards of Heavenly light and certainly no hint of any Pearly Gates. Behind her, an old man in a cashmere cardigan shuffled impatiently. He reeked of nicotine. Her sister Cheryl had smoked. Before Serena could think about striking up a conversation with the old fellow, a frigid voice from the shadows beckoned her.
'Come on, come on, I haven't got all day.' The rangy figure stood behind a wooden lectern in a cloak darker than coal, and a gelid expression studied her for less than a second, like an x-ray passing right through her. She thought that the angled face could easily be centuries old, but the power of his emanation suggested that he was a virile man in his prime. She opened her mouth, keen to introduce herself, but a gnarled hand rose high to stop her. The air seemed suddenly weighted as though the hand commanded its own gravity.
‘Don’t speak, just listen carefully, very carefully.’ He passed her a small book with a plain black cover. Its pitted surface and tatty corners indicated a well-thumbed past. ‘These are the rules. Do not lose this book, the canons contained within are final. You will observe the three doors behind me, one red, one blue, and one white. The red one returns you to Earth as a demon-to-be. The blue one returns you to Earth as an angel-to-be. No matter blue or red you will have three Earth months to prove yourself worthy of your ambitions.’ He glared beyond her. ‘Next.’
‘Wait.’
The figure looked down at her impatiently. ‘Yes?’
‘What about the white door?’
‘What about it?’
‘What happens if I walk through it?’
The man soldered a look deep into her soul with his large black eyes. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘What does that mean?’
This time, he sighed, and his shoulders visibly drooped. ‘Are you colour blind?’
‘No,’ Serena answered quickly.
‘Then choose and be gone.’
‘But this isn't fair…’
'Did life ever feel fair to you?'
Serena shook her head.
'So why do you think this will be any better?'
Serena scowled and tried not to think what this might encompass. There were more pressing matters to contend with. 'Do you really expect me to believe you have no idea what lies behind the white door?' The figure narrowed his vision over her, and his expression sank several fathoms before he replied.
'If you ask me, young lady, red seems to be your colour. Now go before I push you through the door myself.' She opened her mouth to complain again, but before she could speak his crooked finger met her lips. It smelt and tasted of vinegar. 'My girl, you have a very suspicious nature. No one ever discusses the white door and I carefully avoid it myself. Besides, this is a new system, and I can’t be expected to learn every new change overnight, can I?'
'New? How new?'
'Oh, a thousand years, probably not even that. Why do the powers that be have to keep changing things? Next.' Serena thought better of further testing his patience and instead stepped towards the three doors and felt the cold shadow behind her turn to watch. Maybe there was a hint of a smile on his bony jowl. It was difficult to be certain.
‘Definitely not red,’ she said so he could hear, and she stepped through the blue door and was instantly met by bright sunshine. When she turned to look behind her, the door had gone.