Dakota Banks

THE MORTAL PATH SERIES

Susannah Layhem, a healer unjustly accused of witchcraft in the 17th century, is ripped from her husband’s arms and thrown in jail. Abandoned by her husband and friends, she’s tied to a stake and set afire. Her raging bitterness draws one of seven ancient Sumerian demons. The demon Rabishu pulls her from the flames, and she signs a contract to live forever—if she does his evil work. Susannah becomes the Black Ghost, an Ageless assassin gifted with otherworldly skills and superbly trained in martial arts.

She obeys Rabishu’s orders and remains a beautiful young woman. Then she’s given an assignment she can’t bear to carry out. She chooses the mortal path instead, and emerges from three centuries of reluctant service as the demon’s slave. Now Maliha Crayne, she discovers the fine print of her contract. If she saves as many lives as she’s taken, she’ll ascend to a paradise straight out of Sumerian legend. If she fails, she faces eternal torment at Rabishu’s hands. The ticking clock? Every time she saves a life, she ages. The deck is stacked against her. She’s got her own agenda, though. Payback time—killing Rabishu and his kin before he gets his punishing claws on her.

If America’s new, smart power grid suffers an attack, terrorist activities can flourish in the resulting “dark time.” Join Maliha on her thrilling quest to stop a villain from selling America’s future to the highest bidder, to relearn what it means to be mortal, to reach out in friendship, and to dare to believe she can love again.

THE MORTAL PATH: DARK TIME is laced with ancient legends, a heady dash of the supernatural, and the warmth of awakening relationships.

BACKGROUND

The idea for the Mortal Path series originated with the looting of the National Museum of Iraq for three days in April 2003, but I didn't begin researching and writing it until years later. Thousands of irreplaceable treasures from some of the oldest civilizations were lost in the museum looting. These losses were heartbreaking to me because of my interest in archaeology and specifically in Sumer (roughly 5,400 BC to 1,800 BC), during which so many inventions arose: written communication, a number system, timekeeping with hours and seconds, the first wheeled vehicles, the calendar, metallurgy, and the kiln, to mention some.

Ancient Sumer is present-day Iraq. Seeing photos of lost or smashed treasures that had survived five millenia generated ideas of other things that could have survived from that time.

Sumerians believed their gods came from outer space about 450,000 years ago. Eventually the major gods got around to creating humans as their servants when the lesser gods and demons refused to do the dreary work of maintaining a world. The gods all left Earth to return to space 12,500 years ago.

This creation myth correlates with today's search for Planet X, the supposed home planet of those gods. This is a huge topic with many mind-boggling theories and dubious speculations. Planet X collided with Earth and created the moon; Planet X's orbit brings it close to Earth every 3,600 years; the planet will return in December 2012 and is described in the Book of Revelation as the prophecy of the sixth seal; previous close passages of Planet X caused the Great Flood in Noah's time and the sinking of Atlantis. Google Planet X and you'll see what I mean.

What if a remnant of that pantheon of (alien?) gods and demons still exists in the present?

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Dakota Banks writes supernatural thrillers. She’s a member of MWA, ITW, HWA, and SFWA. Dakota is new on the supernatural scene, but has six suspense novels published under a different name. She lives near St. Louis with her husband Dennis and two sons. Her cats Peanut and Marble sometimes ghostwrite her books. Good stuff, too, if you speak Cat.