Blood Cruel (Gods of Blood and Shadow Book 1) (21 page)

He smiled, then felt tears run down his cheeks at the thought. The warmth inside him froze. He’d killed people, taken their lives to feed base hunger inside himself. He’d kicked a dog to death as it tried to stop him. Jaden sank to his knees, the guilt tearing at him. He’d killed Katie’s father, not because he was hungry, but because the man might have posed some tiny threat to his plans. If Katie had been there, he’d have killed her too.

He tore at his clothes with his hands, but no matter how he ripped at himself, he couldn’t feel it. His pain was inside his chest, threatening to burst him, growing with every moment.

Chapter 38

Home Again

“Dad?”

Chapter 39

Revenge

T
he world around Katie had vanished; narrowed to a point of rage that made it all irrelevant. She had no thought in her mind anymore, nothing but the impulse for revenge.

She turned the last corner onto Jaden’s street and her glare fixed on the trees shielding his house. As she walked, she ripped her bag open and pulled out her macuahuitl. She didn’t wonder if it could kill a vampire anymore; she would make it. If she had to drive it through him with the power of sheer vengeance, she would.

At the trees, Loki was waiting. He didn’t stop her; he didn’t even speak. His eyes held an understanding of what she needed to do. What she’d needed to do from the start.

She stalked up the path to Jaden’s front door and saw it was open. He was probably waiting for her inside. A tiny thought told her it would be a trap, but she didn’t care. Let him spring it on her and find out the consequences. She pushed through the door and went inside, through another open door and another, to the living room where Jaden was waiting.

He was shirtless, his skin covered in cuts that didn’t bleed. Most of them were around his heart, or where it would have been if a block of spite wasn’t there in its place.

“Do it.” He threw his arms wide. “Do it.”

Katie pulled the macuahuitl back and swung at his neck. The shock of her arms stopping made her gasp in pain. Her weapon had halted a centimetre from Jaden’s skin. He leaned toward it as if willing her to cut him down.

She glared around her, searching for Loki and finding him behind her. “Do that again and I’ll have you exorcised.”

Loki nodded.

Turning back to Jaden, she pulled back her macuahuitl and struck again. And again the weapon stopped short of its mark. Her muscles screamed in agony from the frustrated swing.

She spun around and swung at Loki instead, but the blow passed straight through him. She panted in frustration. “Why won’t you let me kill him?”

“Because it worked,” Loki said. “You tamed a vampire. He’ll help us now.”

“He killed my father.”

Loki reached out, as if he wanted to touch her, but couldn’t. “He did. His kind have killed thousands of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons. Your pain isn’t unique, Katie. All around the world, hundreds of people are going through the same pain today. Most of them won’t even know where their loved ones went. They’re just gone. One meal in a string of them for a vampire.”

She shook her head. “And revenge?”

Loki nodded. “Revenge. I won’t stop you again when you strike. Nor will he. He’s destroyed. You did worse to him than I ever could by killing him. Look at him.”

She turned and saw the pain in Jaden’s eyes. He met her gaze and his expression pleaded with her.

“You want mercy?” she asked.

Jaden nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“Mercy you didn’t give my father,” she said. She realised Loki was right. Jaden would suffer worse as he was, than turned to ashes and dust. The only question remained what would make her feel better.

Strangely, she didn’t feel pity for him. There was nothing left inside her for the man in front of her. He wasn’t her former friend, he was something else. She’d used evil itself to turn him into a third thing, but he’d never be her friend again.

Chapter 40

An End

T
he funeral was quiet. It seemed Aidan hadn’t had many friends at his work. He hadn’t been there long enough. A few of them turned up briefly to pay their respects, but soon Katie was all alone with the undertaker. He stepped out of the room and left her with her thoughts, seeming to sense she wanted to be with her father one last time.

She walked closer to the coffin, to where Aidan was lying with his eyes closed. The marks on his neck were gone, masked with makeup by the undertaker. She saw with appreciation that he didn’t even appear dead. If he weren’t so still, she’d have been convinced he’d sit up and hug her. She wished he would hug her, one last time. He’d been her whole world for so long.

She put her head down on his chest, feeling the tears flow. They’d barely stopped for days. How could her father be taken away from her, just like that? It wasn’t fair. She had nobody left to turn to. Her best friend was gone, taking her father with him. She tried to imagine going back to school again, but didn’t think she could face their stares.

After a long moment, she realised there was someone waiting nearby. She straightened up and saw a middle-aged woman.

Katie wiped her eyes and tried to smile. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for the Host of Loki,” the woman said. “I heard there’s a war coming.”

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AUTHOR’S NOTE

In March of 2016, I joined a group on Facebook for fantasy authors. I’d written a fantasy series called
Bytarend
over the previous few years and wanted to see if there was any way to get more readers through the group. Authors’ groups like those are common on Facebook. There have always been a lot of people who want to be writers for a living, and with traditional publishing on the wane, we have to do our own promotion these days.

In the group, I found out that most of the authors wrote urban/paranormal fantasy and they proposed doing a bundle for that sub-genre. The problem was, while my
Bytarend
series has shifters, mages that act like vampires, and other assorted monsters, it’s not urban. It’s closer to sword and sorcery than paranormal.

Which meant I needed to write something in the urban fantasy genre. It’s a genre I’ve read a few times, but it’s not one of my favourites. Or at least, that’s what I thought. When I started to consider it, I realised I was letting a stereotype of the genre colour my thoughts.

You see, I loved
Buffy
, but that’s about as light as it usually gets. There are a lot of urban fantasies that border up on horror that I’ve enjoyed. So I imagined what would happen if the vampires were closer to those in
30 Days of Night
. What if the vampires are truly cold and emotionless when it comes to humans?

But I couldn’t just confine myself to a horror, it had to be an urban fantasy. And one thing I’ve always liked about urban fantasy is the idea of doomed romance. That people fall in love with someone they can’t have. And, with what I had planned for my vampires, who worse than a vampire to fall in love with.

That sparked my interest and ended up with the book you hold in your hands today: a story that combines my love of the monstrous with a doomed romance. The bundle
Blood Cruel
had been written for fell through, but I love writing this book anyway. I have such plans for the sequel, I’m really hoping I can write it. My hope is that enough people enjoy reading this book to tell all their friends ;)

Simon Cantan, 26th August 2016

An avid reader from an early age, Simon Cantan loved to get lost in the worlds that Piers Anthony, Douglas Adams, and others created. When he read Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted at the age of thirteen, he knew he wanted to write, and has been pestering people about it ever since.
Two decades later, Simon has published several books, including the
Bytarend
,
Black Silicon
, and
Kyra Sarin
series. He continues to write science-fiction and fantasy, usually with a humorous slant to it.
More details about Simon and his books can be found at
http://SimonCantan.com