Suddenly, she heard a loud bang, a thump and a scream that caused her to jump from the bed. The hair on the back of her neck stood straight up and her body became one big goosebump.

I'm electric with vertigo, even though I'm on the ground, vertigo like I felt once when I stood on the edge of a high cliff in Arizona and looked straight down.

Longche willed himself to change into his true vampire form. As the helpless vampire watched the transformation, it started screaming. It was still screaming when Longche's rows of razor-sharp teeth sank into its throat. It had been thousands of years since he had drunk the blood of vampires. With each creature he consumed, he could feel himself growing stronger.Growing stronger - and growing closer to the Dark Mother, who was waiting to exact a terrible revenge upon him.

Rain turned to ice,and lightning splintered, it splicedthe black sky, it seeped a bright white.All animals they fled,from the sky as it bled,pale death that fell veiling the night.

Revenge: it's a dream of flames fueled by scorched remains that are lit to a torch and brought back upon the one who burned you.

As Roran watched, the man's arms, neck, and chest shriveled, and his bones appeared in sharp relief-from the bowlike curve of his collarbones to the hollow saddle of his hips, where his stomach hung like an empty waterskin. His lips puckered and drew back farther than they were intended to over his yellow teeth, baring them in a grisly snarl, while his eyeballs deflated as if they were engorged ticks being squished empty of blood, and the surrounding flesh sank inward.