Nightwind

1st Book: HellWind Trilogy

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Hard Shell Word Factory

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

#This story copyright 2003 by Charlotte Boyett-Compo. All other rights are reserved. Thank you

for honoring the copyright.

Cover Art by: Mary Z. Wolf

Published by: Hard Shell Word Factory.

PO Box 161

Amherst Junction, WI 54407

[email protected]

www.hardshell.com

Electronic book created by Seattle Book Company.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no

relation whatever to anyone bearing the same name or names. These characters are not even

distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure

invention.

He heard her
calling to him, one of thousands who asked each night. One of the legion of

hopeless, burdened women whose souls were blighted, withering on the vines of life. Her name

meant nothing to him; names never did. It was her pitiful sobbing, her breaking heart, her utter

loneliness that caught, and held, his attention. He listened closely, his mind reaching out across

time and space and millennia. To him, her entreaties were like cool, sweet water to a thirsty man;

they tempted his thirst for further knowledge of the human race and filled his bored mind with a

multitude of possibilities.

The dark ember in his eyes flared.

Her sobbing had ceased; her desolation, her emptiness called out to him, begged him, beckoned

him, needed him. The ache in her heart was a sentient life form thrusting up through the heavens,

speeding toward his lair. It cried out in mournful whimpers of surrender to him, granting him

entry, promising him all, and its sound struck a chord deep in his being.

He turned his gaze Earthward, searching amongst all the womanly cries for help, the sobs of

need, the whimpers of female defeat and frustration and failure. His keen vision traveled swiftly

from land to land, from coast to coast, mountain to mountain, river to dale. He strained to catch

her voice once more, one tiny, fluttering essence of her grief. In the strident confusion of tongue

and sound and noise, he probed; he explored the nether regions of human misery that called out

to him, searching for the one voice, the one cry that had garnered his attention. In the resonance

drifting up to him, at last he heard her and his intellect homed in on her pain.

He smiled.

He had found her.

And she would be his.

Lauren Fowler’sforty-fourth birthday came and went with the onset of the Summer Solstice. There had

been no party, no birthday cards nor wishes, no presents wrapped in gaily colored paper to mark the

day of her birth, no bouquet of flowers. No one phoned. No one even noticed. No one cared.

Not the people she worked with who always ignored her.

Not the customers who never acknowledged her presence.

Not the people on the street who overlooked her.

Not her neighbors who barely noticed her existence.

Not her mother who had always neglected her.

Lauren Fowler had no friends, only acquaintances. She had no one with whom she could talk, to whom

she could confide her deepest fears and regrets. There had never been anyone in her life who would

listen to her troubles, and they had been many in her life. No one ever listened when Lauren Fowler

spoke. No one ever took the time to hear what she said. Her voice was drowned out by all the other

voices; her words lost in the vast sea of human flotsam that washed around her. Lauren Fowler was as

alone in her world as though she were the only inhabitant.

“Where can I find John Sandford’s new book?”

Lauren looked up at the elderly woman who was standing in the aisle. She smiled as she stood up from

her cramped position on the floor, but the old woman did not return the gesture.

“I believe it’s out of stock at the moment, but if you would like to give me your name, I can call you

when...” She stopped as the old woman, mouth pursed in annoyance, eyes rolling, turned and walked

away from the counter. Lauren’s smile faded and a hard thump of hurt twisted in her heart. She watched

until the old lady had pushed through the front door and was gone.

“Those self-help books will not shelve themselves, Miss Fowler!”

Lauren jumped, turning around to face her manager, Mrs. Yelverton. “One of our customers was asking

about—”

“I am not paying you to chit-chat with the customers, Miss Fowler. I pay you to work.” Louvenia

Yelverton frowned and her dark red lips twisted in irritation. Her sharp scrutiny raked Lauren. “There are

quite a few names on my waiting list of prospective employees. If you are not willing to do the job, you

can certainly be replaced.”

Lauren’s eyes widened in fear. “I do want the job, Mrs. Yelverton. I apologize if it seemed otherwise.”

“Well then,” the manager nodded curtly. “We’ll see how much you wish to maintain your employment

with us. I expect you to have those books shelved and cataloged in short order. Is that too much to ask

for the ridiculously high pay you are earning, Miss Fowler?”

“No, Mrs. Yelverton,” Lauren mumbled, her face scarlet. “I’ll have the section finished before quitting

time.”

Louvenia sniffed. “If not, you will stay until it’s done.” she pointed a thin, bony finger at her employee.

“And I will not pay one penny of overtime if you do!”

“I understand, Mrs. Yelverton,” Lauren answered. She ducked her head, her shoulder-length hair

cascading over the sides of her face to hide her embarrassment from the older woman.

“And do something with your appearance!” Louvenia snapped. “It is unseemly for a woman your age to

wear her hair in that manner.” The manager reached up to pat her own sleek chignon. “One can never

recapture one’s youth, Miss Fowler.”

“Yes, Mrs. Yelverton.” Lauren’s hands twisted together at her waist. “I’ll pin it up tomorrow.”

“Are you waiting for an engraved invitation to get back to work?”

Lauren shook her head and sank to her knees before the older woman could ridicule her again. She

blindly reached for a book, tears making her vision water, blurring the title. She swallowed hard to keep

the sob from escaping, felt the other shop girls smirking at her, hear their muted giggles. Her face flamed

as her trembling hands pushed the book onto the shelf.

“If you ask me,” she heard Inez Montes say, “Yelverton ought to fire her. There’s not a day that goes by

that she isn’t in trouble with the old lady.”

“Yelverton feels sorry for her,” Beth Janacek laughed. “Who else in town would hire Maxine Fowler’s

old maid daughter?”

“No one in their right mind, that’s for sure!” Karla Cooper said in a droll tone and the laughter rang out

until Louvenia’s harsh shush came from the back of the store.

Lauren wished the floor would open up beneath her; a wide, deep, endless chasm yawn before her into

which she could fall, and keep falling, disappearing forever. She knew they watched her: laughing,

mocking, hating. She could no longer hear their words, but nevertheless she knew the hushed whispers

coming from the other women were about her. A piercing pain throbbed in her soul and her tears slowly

crept down her cheeks as she took another book from the box beside her and placed it on the shelf.

“Excuse me,” came a soft voice from above her.

Lauren flinched, startled, for she hadn’t heard the customer’s approach. She looked up and blinked.

“Perhaps you can help me,” he said, his gaze kind, his lips stretching into a lazy smile. “I’m looking for a

book on medieval madrigals by Soames. Do you know if you carry it?”

She stared at him, her eyes widening, her lips parting in surprise. She couldn’t seem to find her voice and

when his left eyebrow lifted in amusement, his smiling mouth twitched, she felt her face flame again.

“I’m sorry,” she said, coming so hastily to her feet her heel caught in her skirt and she lurched forward.

A tremor of pure shock ran through her as he reached out and took her arm to keep her from falling.

“Easy there.” He laughed as he steadied her.

Lauren looked up into his smiling face and felt a quiver go through her belly. The man was looking at her,

not through her, and there was a gentle kindness in the way his gaze swept over her face.

“May I help you?” Inez Montes sultry Spanish accent was like a pail of cold water in Lauren’s face and

she turned, seeing the shop girl eyeing the customer with undisguised invitation.

Lauren saw the flash of annoyance that flared dangerously in the man’s dark eyes. He had been looking

directly at her, but at the other woman’s interruption, he slowly turned his attention to Inez. His hand on

Lauren’s arm tightened. “I am being helped, thank you.” Lauren noticed the warmth had fled his deep,

slightly accented voice.

“Miss Fowler is only a stock clerk,” Inez informed him, the sultriness deepening in her voice to gain his

attention that had shifted back to Lauren. “I am one of the saleswomen. I know every book in the store.

What may I help you find?” She sidled closer, her avid interest roaming the tall length of him.

The man ignored Inez Montes. “Stock clerk?” he asked Lauren, his voice a silky caress. “Then you are

familiar with every book on every shelf in this establishment, are you not?”

Lauren could only nod. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Inez glowering at her. She wished the man

would let go of her arm, but his thumb was rubbing a slow little circle on the tender flesh on the inside of

her elbow. It was a sensation that was both stimulating and threatening at the same time and it caused a

feeling with which Lauren was not familiar. She sensed he was gaining as much pleasure from the gesture

as she was.

“Is something wrong here?” Louvenia Yelverton asked as she joined them. Her sharp blue gaze passed

over Lauren, dismissing her, and went to the customer. “Has this girl caused you a problem, sir?”

“No problem at all,” he answered. He smiled at Lauren. “As a matter of fact, she was about to help me

make some purchases, weren’t you, mam’selle?” His voice was like a gentle touch as he scanned her

face.

“Mrs. Montes is—” The man swung his concentration to the older woman, giving her the full impact of

his gaze, turning his head so he faced her fully, and the manager’s words came to an abrupt stop as she

stared at him, her indrawn breath a quick sigh.

“I am already being helped,” he said in a soft, quiet voice that brooked no further discussion and then he

smiled, his gaze steady on the manager. “You have no objections to that, do you, Madame?”