Another First Chapter, this time from my friend P L Blair from the first in her Portals series called Shadow Path.  This is a fantastic series.

DESCRIPTION

Magic and crime. Agatha Christie meets J.R.R. Tolkien in “Shadow Path,” the first book in the new Portals series by author P.L. Blair.
An Ogre murdered with a rune-inscribed sword is just the beginning as Kat Morales, a very human detective on the Corpus Christi, Texas, police force, and her Elf partner Tevis McLeod follow a blood trail that leads to Pixies, necromancy and Magic of the Blackest kind … to its climax in a stronghold Between worlds, where Tevis must duel spell for spell with a former lover who wants to see her old flame extinguished permanently.

Chapter One

Ogres looked – and smelled – bad enough in life. Death magnified those uncharming qualities, especially the smell, something like a cross…