Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

do for him to know that he was harboring the infamous Lady of Devices, inadvertent murderer of Lightning Luke Jackson and reigning queen of the south side underworld.
    Her reputation in society would never recover.

    Continue reading for an excerpt from Immortal Faith .

Excerpt: Immortal Faith
    Copyright 2011 Shelley Adina Bates

    In the small, traditional community of Minuit, Idaho, the Brethren pray that God will deliver them from evil. They should have been more specific.

    Sophie Dupont is on the threshold of womanhood, standing in the door between her religion’s way of life and the possibilities of the world outside. She is also torn between two young men: David Martin, whom she has known since childhood, and Gabriel Langford, the new arrival. In a community that only grows when people are born into it, a convert—young, single, and male—is the most exciting thing that has happened in years.
    When Sophie’s uncle is found dead in the barn with his throat slashed and bitten, the community grieves—except Sophie, who has been abused by him for years. And when the local mean girl is killed the same way, Sophie hardly dares to voice what she suspects: that only the worst among them are being weeded out. Under the elders’ approving eyes, it seems Gabriel is dedicated to worshipping God. But his methods may not stand up to too close a scrutiny . . . and Sophie is getting very close indeed . . .

    Immortal Faith, a young adult novel of vampires and unholy love
    By Shelley Adina

    Chapter 1

    The baby chick, hatched just yesterday and half the size of my palm, peeped as I stroked its downy yellow back with one finger. The two halves of its tiny beak crossed at the tips, which was why it had been peeping. It couldn’t pick up the feed and it was hungry.
    Maman would be out any moment, but I couldn’t help myself—I had to do something for it, even if all I had to offer was the warmth of my hands. I knew it had to be culled; if it managed to grow up and have chicks of its own, it would pass on the defect. On a Brethren farm, even a tiny scrap of life such as this still had to do its best and pull its weight, and my mother had no tolerance for things that didn’t pull their weight.
    Unless we were speaking of my youngest brother, Pierre.
    Sometimes you didn’t know until a creature was half grown that it would need to be culled. When one of the young roosters decided it was going to challenge Papa for the rule of the farmyard, and attacked his leg in a fury of male aggression, Papa simply pulled it off his boot and ended that discussion with a quick twist. “I’ll not have that bird passing on his bad seed,” was all he’d said, and we had chicken and dumplings for dinner that night.
    Pierre and Richard laughed and called me softheaded as well as softhearted because I couldn’t bring myself to do some of the things that were necessary on a working farm. And while I knew God had a purpose for every animal and human here—even Pierre—and we all had to fill our places . . . I gazed down at the defenseless fluffball in my hand. We were taught to strive after perfection, but couldn’t there be a little room for mercy, too?
    But questioning was a sure path to a bad spirit, which led to discontent and pride. Father, forgive me for my resentful thoughts .
    “Sophie, are you out here?”
    “ Oui, Maman .”
    The sunlight streaming in the barn door darkened briefly, throwing my mother’s body into silhouette and shining through her capote to show the smooth French braid tucked up under itself beneath it. “You’re not mooning over those chicks, are you? You know we can’t keep the ones that aren’t up to standard.”
    “I know.”
    “You’ll have to learn to do this some day.” Her tone softened as she joined me at the pen where the broody hens lived until the chicks were big enough to go out into the barn. “When you’re married and have a fine farm of your own, you’ll be overrun with rickety, good-for-nothing birds if you don’t cull the bad ones.”
    No one I knew kept chickens as pets, but in the rare moments that I sat down on the back steps and one would jump into my lap, I would swear that, like my baby sister, they wanted to be cuddled. I wished I could keep this one as a pet. “She’s not bad,” I said softly. The chick had settled in my palm, and I covered it with my other hand. “It isn’t her fault she’s not perfect.”
    “And would you have a yard full of cross-beaks that