Sample

Nariah squeezed her little car into parking between a dually truck and a camper van painted with world war two fighter jet-style eagles on one side. The van was outfitted with solar on the roof and probably housed a couple of nomad vampires hiding from the last rays of the afternoon.

Nariah didn’t intend to be downtown long enough to run into them at sunset.

Her last stop today was one of her favorites, a little supply store stuffed to the brim with herbs, stone, books, and trinkets useful in the arcane branch of magic. Nariah’s arcane knowledge started and ended with a high school promise to herself that she’d never work with geometry again, but the overlap in useful focus items made Anesa’s shop the perfect place for Nariah to stock up.

As a bonus, she could window shop along the way.

The very tempting chocolate shop had several decorated candy apples on display in their window with a sign that said Apples are a fruit! While their A-stand at the door pointed toward the shop with a sign that said This way: chocolate. That way: donno, bears probably. We wouldn’t risk it. Nariah resisted temptation but put a reminder in her phone to pick something out for her mother’s birthday next month.

At the dog grooming place three doors down, a newly trimmed poodle stood in the window display, waiting for his owner to pick him up. His ears perked up as Nariah walked by and he wagged his rainbow-dyed tail.

Nariah passed two clothing shops still closed for the day that catered to vampires and other creatures of the night.

Then the bone bracelet on Nariah’s wrist woke up and hissed in her blood.

Nariah paused. The bracelet had once been a snake, a garter snake that had been found in the garden. Now the spine wrapped around her wrist, held with jump rings and coiled copper wire to keep it flexible.

The bracelet, normally white, glowed a ghostly blue, and the snake hissed again, tugging Nariah’s spiritual sense across the road. It didn’t feel urgent. And it was too early for vampires. The sensation of scales sliding through Nariah’s bloodstream was more like coiled excitement.