Chapter 1...
They watched the boy burn in satisfied silence.
He'd screamed at first, bound at the wrists and ankles. Screamed until the flames had filled his mouth and burnt away his tongue .
When nothing but ashes remained the four men, satisfied that the deaths of their loved ones had ben avenged, turned and left in silence.
Behind them, the ashes spiraled like a dust devil and began to take on a new shape.
Soon a female figure stood, like a phoenix from the ashes. Clearly human, but also alien. She had the face of a woman around the same age as Edison Carter. The frame of her body was slender, her skin pale, but not pink nor white. Instead it was a light shade of golden brown, the color of a tree stripped of its bark.
She was naked, but if she had nipples or anything worth blushing about, they were almost invisible.
At any rate, those things would be easily missed while anyone who saw her stared in shock at her glass eyes and wooden tail.