I extend my deepest appreciation to the King, my best friend and constant companion. Your grace is truly unfathomable. May this book bring You pleasure. If it does not, it’s worth nothing, but if it does, then that makes every minute invested in it—the fun ones and the not-so-fun—worthwhile. Thanks for going on ahead to prepare a home for me—and for faithfully working to get me prepared for it.

1

THE STORM CRASHED down behind me, lightning bolts chasing me like a pack of bloodhounds, thunder screaming at me. As light flooded the darkness, I looked up through the pounding rain and saw a wall of jutting rocks looming above the road, their long arms poised like executioners.

The wind was a giant hand at my back, driving me on. I tried digging in my heels, but the road was mud, my feet indistinguishable from the swirling brown goo that sucked me downward.

My heart pounded as if I were pursued by a midnight stalker. My body dripped like a deep gash in a dark cloud.

Why did my right arm feel so heavy? My forefinger trembled. My right temple ached from a pressure I couldn’t explain. I sensed a cold eye staring at me, a shadowy Cyclops threatening me, pushing itself toward me.

Where was I? What was happening? How did I get on this road alone, bareheaded in this awful tempest?

I remembered driving to my mountain cabin and then … the rest was a blur.

Gusts of wind kept shoving me forward, letting up a little, then pushing even harder. All I saw through dripping, stinging eyes was the ground passing beneath my feet. My jeans were drenched, my hunting jacket a soaked sponge. I shivered.

My knees quaked and my mind started spinning in the gray violence. I could no longer tell ground from sky, earth from heaven.

“Help me! God, help—” Catching myself I groaned. I might as well be talking to the tooth fairy for all the good it would do me.

I heard a violent noise like a huge canvas tarp whipping in the wind. I looked over my shoulder, then dropped to the ground in frozen terror. The sound was the flapping of giant wings on a reptilian creature with flared claws. It looked like a dragon—no, a flying dinosaur, a pterodactyl with dead eyes and jagged teeth.

It appeared too heavy to fly, but it did, and it was coming for me.

I rose from the mud and ran with the wind, but the beating of those wings grew until it filled my ears. I felt the blast of the creature’s hot breath. I smelled a thousand matches lit at once—sulfur. I flailed my arms and fell again into the mud as the monster swooped down.

As I tensed, the beast brushed over me. How could it miss? Was it playing with me, terrorizing me before the kill?