A SECTION OF CHAPTER 1

“Wow, Timothie, I love the purple spikes.” The older woman perched on a silver chair while her stylist twirled his hands through her lavender hair. She settled the salon’s cape around her shoulders.

“Why don’t you try this, luv?” he asked and spun on one shiny black boot, the silver buckles sparkling in the sun that poured like honey through the spacious windows of his salon. “I can put you under the dryer, and the color will last longer. Then style your hair like this and this – that’s right. Come with me. Magazine? Coffee? Is the music too loud for you?”

“You promise you’ll make me look young again?” The woman pulled at her left earlobe and smiled. She strode to the dryer and settled herself under the hood. Timothie brought her black coffee. The roar of the dryer drowned out the sound of Jann Arden singing “Under June.”

##

In the district of Oliver, across the city, Timothie’s old friend and nemesis hunched over a pentagram carved into the floor tiles of his condo penthouse. Something sloshed in the basin by his elbow. New York, where he’d last worked in advertising, was a checkered memory. Only Edmonton was real; the gateway to Hell.

Reginald Smith chuckled. New York hadn’t worked out. They’d hated him there, like the company he worked for in Edmonton hated him until he’d promised to make them billions with an invention from the dark side. TopStrategy Marketing didn’t know they were dealing with the dark side. They didn’t care to know.

Thick clots of blood and smoke combined to choke the stocky blond man, who peered into the eyes of the summoned apparition. Bael, the head of sixty-six legions of demons in Hell, desultorily granted supernatural powers to his minions on Earth. Reginald’s lip curled below his blond mustache. He seldom made use of invisibility. Surely, there were other, more potent, superpowers denied to him.

He poured the holy water into the middle of the pentagram. Bael roared and flowed clockwise down the drain set into the blue tiles and the symbols that had summoned him. It was not yet the demon’s time to make his presence known to Earth. Reginald would help it with that awful task when the time came. This was only a trial run for the man and the demon, and Reginald made sure he was in control. He feared the power of the demon but was excited, as well.

##

Timothie threw the black cloak with the silver stars across his bulging biceps. A blast of cold air buffeted the glass doors and rattled the sign in front of his salon.

Maude slipped out the side door, knowing more than she ought to know in this moment of his transformation.”

Meet Author Kenna McKinnon…

Kenna McKinnon is a Canadian freelance writer, author of SpaceHive (2012), and Bigfoot Boy: Lost on Earth, as well as Benjamin and Rumblechum, The Insanity Machine; Blood Sister; Short Circuit and Other Geek Stories; DISCOVERY: A Collection of Poetry, Den of Dark Angels, Engaging the Dragon, and Timothie Hill and the Cloak of Power. Her most memorable years were spent at the University of Alberta, where she graduated with a degree in Anthropology. Kenna is a member of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta and a professional member of the Canadian Authors Association. She has two children and three grandsons. Her hobbies include fitness, health, drawing, reading, walking, music, cooking, volunteering, and baking for friends.

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