Serena

Maxie’s arms extended as she reached for them. No, no, this can’t be happening. The plane was nosing into the jungle. She saw her father holding her mother tightly in his arms, but—he looked directly at her.

He sees me?

His thoughts came through to Maxie as clearly as though he were speaking. “Maxie, love … you know who you are. Be who you are and protect yourself. She is coming.”

The plane met earth with the sound and effect of a bomb exploding. It crashed into the trees and burst into flames.

~ Two ~

Four months later

MAXIE HAD WALKED around in a state of devastation. Her parents had been wrenched from her life, and that loss shadowed her. Family and friends surrounded her, however, and she managed to pull herself up and out after those first couple of months.

Maxie opened the gate, noting that the latch was broken. The stone steps led to the beach below, but she didn’t stop to put on her sneakers yet. She wanted to feel the sand beneath her feet. She had made a decision. She would give her friends a call and tell them she would join them that evening for a night in East Hampton. No more gloom.

She only hoped she wouldn’t get one of her visions while she was with them. They were used to it. Early on she had explained them away as ‘blackouts.’ They were good friends and had always been there for her. However, lately those visions had taken over her life. She was having them all the time.

If that weren’t enough, the secrets that had haunted her all her life were demanding attention. Her sleep was constantly bombarded by memories reminding her just who she was, who she was supposed to become. Earlier that morning, the vision had been so real it had made her shake. It was the memory of her father holding her by her shoulders to say, “That’s what you are, Maxie-girl … a Druid priestess from a long line of pure Druids … all of us Reigates—pure Druids.”

She had pulled a face at him. “Whatever.”

She had blown him off—her father … and now he was gone. Pure Druid? She grimaced to herself. How does that happen? Someone or something had to have manipulated the fates to accomplish that.

Maxie hadn’t wanted to be a Druid. Being sixteen had been difficult enough. It had freaked her out. They had told her over and over that she was a Druid priestess, and she told them, “Like come on, and get real … I haven’t even had my first kiss, and now you are telling me I am a bona fide priestess?”

Her parents were gone, and now she needed to know. What did it all mean? Did this mean she had power? What kind of power? Perhaps it was curiosity, perhaps it made her feel closer to her lost parents, but Maxie had taken up the old leather-bound journals and started devouring them word for word. They explained a great deal. At first she found them difficult to believe, but Maxie’s instincts moved the lie detector needle into the ‘true’ zone very quickly.

Her nightmares and dreams plagued her. The visions became more intense and took on a sequence. Every night the same people were there, and it was as though she knew them. Every night a different scene was enacted as though it were live on stage. Scents and sounds accompanied the visions, and Maxie walked though the scene as though she were a ghost amongst them, seeing, but unseen.

The other evening blasted her with the most vivid dream of all. She felt as though she were experiencing the sensations of the strangers in her dream. She heard their thoughts as she walked as an invisible observer between them. Walked? It was more like she glided as she drifted between them, beside them, stood right up in their faces. And the past totally unfolded for her: it was 1814, and there was a woman—not quite human—and she was threatening Julian Talbot, whom Maxie recognized at once, and his bride, her namesake, Maxine Reigate. The woman’s name was Lady Lamia DuLaine.

DuLaine was a powerful and obsessed being who wanted Julian Talbot for herself.

Julian knew his bride was in danger. He knew Lamia wanted to kill her, and he believed he could put a stop to Lamia’s machinations. He believed he was the only one that could.

Maxie had always known this story, but it had never been enacted out for her as it was now in her dream vision. She had known Julian Talbot immediately because his life-size portrait hung in her father’s study. She had always had a schoolgirl crush on him, and as she moved through her dream vision she came up close to him and reached out to touch. Nothing. It was a vision of the past—no touching.

Suddenly Julian was riding off on his horse. Why? This was his wedding day, and she sensed he was full of purpose. What was he doing? Maxie saw her ancestor, her twin in appearance and name, looking out a window at his retreating form.

The curtain of her vision closed. She had slept after that. She didn’t need to see anymore—she knew the legend.

Salt air filled her lungs, and she breathed in and then out. The pleasant breeze swooshed at Maxie’s clothes and blew her long, black hair around her face. She reached up to sweep it away from her eyes and lips and clipped it at the nape of her neck. The damp sand beneath her naked toes felt good, and she remembered how nice it was to be alive—if only she could banish the visions.

Aaaaah—a bolt of pain went through her, and she bent over as another sharp blade sliced through her gut. Maxie went to her knees on the sand, and her hand went out to the boulder at her side. She collapsed and screamed, “Enough!”

The pain subsided and then vanished. A vision remained, and it was horrendous, but the pain was gone. Had she done that? Had she managed to control and then rid herself of the pain?

No time to think.

Lamia’s amber eyes were glowing red. She was doing something to Julian. Lamia’s long blonde hair fell loosely over her shoulder and hung over Julian, who was lying on her Oriental rug. There was blood. It was his blood—her blood … on his white shirt sleeves. She was screaming. It had all gone wrong. Terribly wrong. Julian was a powerful Druid priest, but he hadn’t been able to stop Lamia DuLaine, and she had erred. He was fighting the blood she had poured down his throat—her blood. His body would not accept it, and he was slipping away.

Her diseased blood ravaged Julian Talbot’s system, and he went into a coma. DuLaine raised her fists towards the Druid Realm she hated, and her scream filled her house.

Maxie knew what was coming next. Again, she didn’t need to see it. She didn’t want to see it. She knew the next scene would show DuLaine tricking her ancestor to ride and meet with her. She knew DuLaine would have someone pull a rope across the bridle path and that her ancestor would go down. She knew that DuLaine would take a rock and with deliberation smash it down on her ancestor’s head—killing her. She didn’t need to see that. She didn’t need to see—wait … who was that—someone else was in the vision. She couldn’t see who it was. This wasn’t part of anything she had read in the journal—and then it was gone.

Maxie leaned heavily against the boulder at her side. She needed help. Hurriedly she shoved her hand into the pocket of her sweat jacket and pulled out her cell phone.

Chased by an evil vampire who is also her father,