The End Of The Journey

By Sophie Duncan

The Hidden War has been raging unseen my normal eyes for generations and Zac Kithrall, demon-seer, and Damon Wulfres, demon-raiser, have grown up on opposite sides of it.

Zac knows these truths, but when he finds himself mostly helpless and under Damon's control, he can't remember why he trusts his enemy, or why they are running from both sides in the war. Weak, and fighting a raging power that is threatening to tear him apart from the inside, Zac is forced to rely on Damon, friend or foe, and, together, they face a race against time to prevent Armageddon.

The End Of The Journey is the first story in The Hidden War Series.

The Hidden War is a YA Contemporary Fantasy containing a male/male romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wittegen Press
• Release date: Apr 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781908333612

Sophie Duncan

Half my time I am a project manager developing IT solutions. The other half, you'll find me scribbling away at many a story that just won't leave me alone. I've been writing since I was a wee thing, and publishing since I discovered the internet in 1994 or so.So what do I write? Contemporary and urban fantasy have mainly been my playground, but I have done some real world settings as well. I do like mystery and have been reading (and watching) Agatha Christie since I was a child. I've also been known to do a bit of poetry.Style: I have been told I do angst well, so if you want your heartstrings twanged, or your tummy to tie in knots until the end, then I'm your gal. I am, however, a happy ending junkie, although I do throw a hint of realism in there sometimes as well. I like a few twists and turns on the way in some of my plots, although I have written my share of PWPs as well. I have to admit a small obsession with eyes: I believe they are the seat of beauty in a person, so I play with them in creature fic and use them for expression in others - personal hang up, sorry. Also, I have never met a cliché I didn't like and I am a firm believer that cliché is fine if you do it right.Writing is a passion and there's nothing better than writing for an audience. Any writer who says they don't care about feedback must have had an ego amputation :) If you life my scribbles, I'd be very glad to hear from you.

Book preview

The End Of The Journey

The Hidden War #1

by

Sophie Duncan

Published by Wittegen Press

Smashwords Edition

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Wittegen Press

http://www.wittegenpress.com/

Copyright © 2012 by Sophie Duncan

http://www.wittegenpress.com/sophieduncan

Artwork by Sophie Duncan

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

ISBN:

Table Of Contents

Author's Note

The End of The Journey (The Hidden War #1)

Afterword

Also by Sophie Duncan: Death In The Family

Also from Wittegen Press

Author's Note

This story is young adult contemporary fantasy, including a male/male romance.

The End Of The Journey was published in two parts 16th and 17th July 2012.

I'm a big Harry Potter fan and The End Of The Journey started in my head as a Harry-Draco fanfiction. However, about the only thing remaining of that universe in this story is the hair colour, since I never made it more than a few paragraphs into the fanfic. I conceived it before the last Harry Potter book was published and it just didn't work in my head after that was released. However, I still liked the premise of one-time enemies working together for a reason that, because of his vulnerable and suppressed position, eludes the character from whose point of view the story is written, i.e. Zac.

I was considering making this a non-magical universe, but who was I kidding? I like writing contemporary fantasy and I was far too tempted by the edge of surrealism that comes to a world with fantasy edges. Thus, the world of demon-raisers and their enemies was born in my head – funnily enough, I realised as I proofread the draft that I never gave the good guys a group name.

I sank into this universe easily and ideas for it popped up without difficulty. However, I was surprised when a second story came to me so quickly after I'd finished the first one, but Damon wouldn't leave me alone and I had to give him some space. That story, A New Path, was also published as part of the games.

On a side note, I'm not sure why I made the third shadow-hunter anonymous, but I think it'll turn out to be important in later stories.

~*~

The End of The Journey (The Hidden War #1)

Damon Wulfres pacing in front of him chanting ancient magicks at him was nothing new to Zac, they had been on opposite sides of the demon war since they were children. Yet, the nerves making his stomach turn added a spice he had not experienced before. He wasn't scared of Wulfres, not since he'd seen his enemy fold and run when the evil they had unleashed had turned and attacked its creator, Harold Wulfres, Damon's father.

Yet, it was never prudent to ignore a Wulfres, they were devious at the best of times and downright treacherous the rest, so he watched the youth pace at the edge of the circle in which Zac was standing. Grey eyes glanced up at him with resentment, nothing unusual there, but Zac defied that hostility and, for reasons unknown to the part of him that thought running would be a very good idea, he remained standing submissively in the centre of the power nexus, the place where demons were raised. Zac watched from inside his own body, his efforts to incite some kind of reaction in himself countered by a confusing instinct to take whatever was coming to him.

Was he mad?

Nothing made sense to Zac as he looked back at Wulfres, and what made even less sense was when his adversary, the man he had fought so