Cutting the Net

The cave breathes her name. Like a siren singing on a lonely beach, it calls her into its numbing center. And what's worse, Elizabeth Lawson can't seem to resist it. Like a friend it welcomes her and allows her a place to hide in secret from a world she doesn't understand. Like a drug it creeps under her skin, leaving her shaking with need. What starts out as an escape becomes an obsession and quickly graduates into an addiction. Escaping her father's recent death and a move halfway across the world to the Solomon Islands - a place she had never heard of before - she grasps for anything that might make her feel normal again. The windy shadows stalk her, calling her back to pay tribute every day - and each day she returns like an obedient child. She finds herself venturing deeper and deeper into the darkness. Human skulls stacked in a pyramid next to the entrance of the cave don't frighten her away. Drawings burned into the edges of the rocky walls depicting entire villages being cruelly murdered by a winged headhunter don't sway her focus. She explores until at last she finds a beaded net that shimmers in the light covering a doorway to the dark depths of the inner cave. She has a choice. She makes it quickly. But when she slices the net to obtain a strand of beads, she awakens an evil that makes death seem like a kind friend. As the shadows begin to swirl around her, she realizes her mistake a second too late. This is Book 1 in the Vele and the Tanifa series.