"He moved slowly toward her, and she turned to face him, her body crouched and wary. No matter that she stood on two legs, she had the grace of an animal, a wild thing caught in the midst of feeding….It was her eyes that held him, though. As dark as swamp pools, they burned.
'Easy,' he said. 'I'm Deputy Thibodeaux. Don't make me hurt you.' He aimed at her heart. She was very thin, too malnourished to be any kind of threat under normal circumstances. He knew most everyone in the parish, but he didn't recognize her. 'I don't want to hurt you,' he repeated. He realized too late, that he'd given voice to his personal curse. He'd never wanted to hurt anyone, yet he was so good at it.
The woman laughed, a sound of joy and something else, something indefinable. When he stepped toward her, she dropped to a crouch over the body and growled.
'Get away from the body.' He stepped closer, determined to do his duty. In the moonlight her eyes glinted as if struck by some lunar spell. 'Get back from him.' He was close enough now to see that the dead thing at her feet was Henri Bastion, the wealthiest man in Iberia Parish.
The woman lunged forward, and he sighted on her heart. He'd killed many things but never a woman. She would be the first.
'Back away,' he said. 'Now!' " --excerpted from the book
