Welcome to Snippet Saturday, where authors share pieces of their work or give you a glimpse into our insane or creative process.
Today we’re doing Outtakes. Outtakes are always such fun, because often we are asked to cut things from our books that we might absolutely love. But hey, editors have a reason for asking us to do that. Or we might cut a fun, beautiful, funny, emotional scene from our book because during the editorial stage we’ve made changes to a particular chapter and that scene no longer fits.
I’ve chosen a scene from SURVIVING DEMON ISLAND, the first book in my Demon Hunter series. It’s kind of a gory scene, but also pretty damn funny too. It involves piranhas. No, really. :giggle: And it broke my heart to have to delete it from the book. I’ve always wanted to share this scene with my readers, so now I have the chance to. Some day I’m going to write a book where I can use a piranha scene and keep it.
Hope you enjoy, and be sure to click on the author links after my snippet to see everyone else’s outtakes.
Keep in mind this is an unedited excerpt since it was cut from the book before final editing. So any errors are mine.
“What’s in that water?” she asked. “Fish or something?”
“Not sure. Kind of dark.”
“Yeah. But something’s bubbling or jumping in there.”
“Probably some kind of runoff from those hills.” Derek looked up just in time to see demons coming up on them.
“And we’ve got company.”
Gina dropped her pack, casting it by a tree near the river, pulling her guns out of their holsters and turning toward the advancing demons. “I’ll take the two on the left.”
“Stay sharp and yell if you need help.” Not that he could aid her if she did. He looked at her, wondering if it was the last time he’d see her face. She nodded back and smiled at him, as if to give him assurance, as if telling him to focus on the task, that she’d be fine.
God he loved her courage. He’d never met a woman like her. He turned to the demons on the right, focusing only on them, firing on them with a barrage of bullets as soon as they drew close. He saw the flash of Gina’s guns as she fired on the other two, saw one go down, heard its roar as she hit one in the eyes, blinding it, followed by her whoop of joy. Damn she was a good shot! He felt better knowing she only had one to battle now.
One of his demons was riddled with bullets, its face like a bloody pepperoni pizza by the time he’d finished unloading bullets on it. Blind and bloody, the demon fell and Derek advanced, sliding the knife in its throat and quickly dispatching it. But he didn’t have time to take down the other demon and it grabbed him by the throat, cutting off his airway.
Derek dropped his rifle and clawed at the demon’s hands, gasping for breath and inhaling the putrid smell of its rotting flesh. Fighting against the panic trying to take hold, he bowed his back and dropped to the ground, taking the demon with him and throwing it off. Gulping in air, he reached into his boot for his spare knife, slicing at the demon’s hand, cutting it off at the wrist. The demon howled, staring at the blood spurting out.
“Derek!” He heard Gina’s cry but couldn’t answer her, engaged in a life or death battle with his own demon. He hoped her cry was worry for him and not a plea for aid. He couldn’t think about that right now but willed her to be okay.
The demon lunged at him but Derek held his feet up and plunged them into the demon’s stomach, pushing him off, then leaped to his feet. Gina flew by and landed a kick to the demon’s side, knocking it off balance, but still it wouldn’t fall.
They stood at the edge of the river, the demon balanced precariously close to the edge. If they could get it in the water they could fight it in there, slow it down.
“Give me your hand,” Gina hollered.
Derek held out his hand and Gina came running, swinging herself in an arc around his body, feet held straight out. She hit the demon straight in the chest as she rounded around Derek. The action propelled the demon into the murky water of the river, which suddenly bubbled up like a Jacuzzi.
The demon stood up in the waist-deep water and roared in pain. Tiny black fish with long, razor-sharp teeth leaped out of the water, attaching themselves to its skin. It fought, thrashing around and trying to throw them off, but more of those little suckers leaped out of there and soon the demon’s flesh went flying. Derek had never seen anything like it. Before long the demon stopped struggling, his top half sinking into the water, a feast for whatever the hell those creatures were. In a few moments, the river was once again silent.
Derek stared into the water as if half expecting those fish to leap out of the river and take off after him and Gina. He turned to Gina who was doing the same thing. She looked at him, her eyes wide, her jaw gaping open, then turned back to stare into the water again.
“I thought piranhas were indigenous to South American rivers,” Gina said.
“Ditto.”
“So what the hell were those things? They had teeth!”
Derek shrugged. “Hell if I know. But I’m sure glad the demon fell into that water and not us.”
“Me too. Can we go back to camp now?”
“Uh huh.”
What a day. He could use a beer, a cigar and some really hot sex.
No chance in hell for the beer and cigar. Probably not the hot sex either, unfortunately. But one thing was certain.
Lou had been right. He and Gina were one hell of a pair, at least when it came to hunting demons.
Check out the following folks participating in this week’s Snippet Saturday:
Cynthia Eden
Victoria Janssen
Lauren Dane
Leah Braemel
McKenna Jeffries
Moira Rogers
Sylvia Day
Vivian Arend
Mark Henry
Shelley Munro
Mandy Roth
Eliza Gayle