THE  ROAD  TO  PARADISE  IS  A
DARK  AND  DEADLY  ONE...

“Where are we?”


Tuk shook his head. “I have no idea. I only know that we
are no longer where we were when we saw the yeti.”

Annja felt the pillows. The fabric they were covered in
was smooth and silky to the touch. She looked around
the room and saw that the same type of material
covered the walls. Light came from somewhere, but
it was subdued and refl ected inward from an outside
source. The room seemed designed to transition people
from wherever they’d been into this place. Waking up
to a harsh lightbulb probably wasn’t the best way to do
that, so the lighting was dim, but Annja could still see
everything.

“How long have you been awake?” she asked.

“A few minutes, no more,” Tuk said. “I’m afraid that when
you told me to stop breathing, I did exactly the opposite
and took a huge breath, which no doubt hastened my
own demise as it were.”

Annja grinned. “You can’t be faulted for that.”

Tuk leaned closer. “You know, that is the second time
I have seen that sword of yours. How is it possible for
that to somehow conceal itself on your body and not be
noticeable?”

Annja laughed. “If I tried to explain it to you, you’d only
have more questions. And they’d probably be questions
I couldn’t answer. Not because I don’t want to. But
because I don’t know the answers myself.”

Tuk leaned back. “I see. But you have it here still?”

Annja closed her eyes and saw the sword hovering in
the otherwhere. “It’s here,” she said.

Available March 8, 2011, wherever books are sold.