Blood Cruel (Gods of Blood and Shadow Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright page

  Book Description

  Escape

  Ferry

  The Talk

  Eight Years Later

  Birthday

  A New God

  Off-Church

  Home

  Pureborn

  The Shock

  Training

  Hello, Stranger

  Mondays

  Secrets

  Spare Room

  Plans

  Leaving

  Research

  Return

  Molly

  Night

  Delinquent

  Move

  Lair

  Search

  Metal

  Escape

  Prepare

  Outed

  Train

  Happy Birthday

  Feeding Time

  Backup

  Real

  Power

  The Cure

  The Disease

  Home Again

  Revenge

  An End

  Email sign-up

  Author's Note

  About the author

  BLOOD CRUEL

  BLOOD CRUEL

  BY

  SIMON CANTAN

  First published September 2016

  This Edition published September 2016

  Copyright © 2016 Simon Cantan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  The moral right of Simon Cantan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

  Blood Cruel is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.

  Published by Simon Cantan

  Vampires aren’t the only ones in the shadows

  Katie is a Godchosen. At eighteen, she gets her own personal god. Someone to help her achieve her dreams; guide her in times of trouble; keep her safe.

  Or any god but Loki might have done that. He wants her to be a vampire hunter, the very opposite of keeping her safe.

  Katie’s about to discover the world that lives in the shadows around her. The one regular humans never even see.

  Find out just how cruel those shadows can be inside.

  Chapter 1

  Escape

  Katie could hear the front door burst open from her bedroom. The crash sounded like glass breaking, as if someone had opened the door hard enough to shatter the pretty stained glass in it. Feet thundered up the stairs, and she turned toward her bedroom door, her heart in her throat. The drawing pencil in her fingers hung, forgotten.

  The door flew open and hit the wall, making Katie jump. Her father, Aidan, stood there with wide eyes and a face red from running. Sweat ran from his grey-peppered hair down into his beard.

  “Daddy?”

  “Grab your things, Katie, we need to go.”

  She stood and looked around her room in confusion. “What things? Where are we meant to go?”

  “Clothes, anything you need. We have to leave right now.”

  “Where’s Mum?”

  Her father paused, his eyes growing distant for a moment, but then it was gone. “Never mind that. I’ll tell you later. Get your things. We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

  Aidan rushed from the room, leaving Katie alone. She stared after him for a moment, confused. Her parents had secrets, she knew that, but why was he so panicked? Where was her mother?

  From her parents’ bedroom, she heard something unzip and walked to the doorway. Aidan was throwing things into a suitcase on the bed. She watched him for a moment. Whatever it was, he was serious.

  She hurried back to her room and found her backpack, pulling her schoolbooks out of it. She put in her cards and collectibles, then found her favourite clothes. The bag filled up quickly, so she fetched the duffel bag she used for sports from under her bed. Once she had enough clothes for a few days, she went to her dresser mirror and peeled off the photos she’d stuck there. Her father’s panic made her doubt they’d be back.

  The last one she took was a birthday card her mother had drawn for her. She ran her finger around the number on the front, made of flowers and dragons. The dragons didn’t look angry, chasing one another around the loop of the nine.

  “Ready?” Aidan asked from the doorway.

  “Where are we going?” Katie asked, pulling on her backpack and putting the birthday card in the duffel bag.

  “Norway.”

  “Norway?” Katie frowned. Wasn’t that the capital of Sweden? Or was that Reykjavik? “What about the polar bears?”

  Aidan ignored her, coming into the room and taking her hand, pulling her with him. The duffel bag banged against Katie’s leg as they hurried down the stairs and out of the house. Their car was waiting, the engine still running. Thick, black smoke billowed from the exhaust of the battered red Volkswagen.

  Inside, it was warm. She buckled herself into the back seat while her father threw their luggage into the boot. Then he got into the front seat and sped away. Katie couldn’t help staring at the passenger seat where her mother should have been. “Where’s Mum?”

  “Later, Katie. I have to concentrate.”

  She couldn’t do anything but stare out of the window as they drove. He was so scared of something, but she didn’t know what. Was he kidnapping her? Was her mother back at the house, frantic in Katie’s absence? She shook her head. That was ridiculous. Her parents loved each other. Even if they’d had a fight, her father wouldn’t take her away in revenge.

  Once, when they’d had mice in the house, he’d been too kind-hearted to put down mousetraps. He’d insisted on catching them in humane traps and releasing them in the forest. Her daddy wasn’t the kind to kidnap small girls and take them from their mothers.

  Outside, the houses and people rushed by, faster than usual.

  Chapter 2

  Ferry

  Katie’s legs dangled over the edge of a plastic bench, almost long enough to reach the ground. The ferry rolled back and forth, and her father was turning a light shade of green. He sat opposite her, on a plastic seat with a small table between them. Despite the cold winds blowing around the deck, he’d insisted they sit outside. Everyone else was inside, in the warmth.

  “Where’s Mum?” Katie asked.

  Aidan’s eyes got the far-away look again and tears welled in his eyes. She’d never seen her father cry before. Not even when he walloped his thumb with a hammer trying to put up a shelf. He’d sworn a lot, but there hadn’t been a single tear.

  “She’s gone, monkey,” Aidan said. “Your mother died.”

  Katie stared at him, not understanding. She’d seen her at breakfast, earlier that day. Her mother couldn’t be dead. “That’s not true. You’re lying.”

  Aidan shook his head, sending the tears tumbling down his cheeks. She couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. She got to her feet and ran off, around the front of the ship until she couldn’t see him. Her mother couldn’t be dead. That was something that happened to old people, not to her.

  The air around her felt awkward, as if it didn’t want to fit inside her lungs. Her eyes burnt, but she forced the tears back. There was no reason to cry if no one had died.

  She ran until she came to a chain with a sign blocking the way. Stairs behind the chain led up, but Katie didn’t take them. She sat on th
e bottom step and stared out at the sea, the dark, grey waves rolling and spitting into the air.

  Inside her, she felt numb. It wasn’t happening to her, but to someone else. It couldn’t be real. There would have been a funeral, if it were real. She’d never been to one, but she knew they held funerals for people who died.

  She wasn’t sure how long it was before Aidan appeared around the corner, approaching cautiously. When he got close, she moved over on the step to give him space. He sat, his knees bunched around his chest, and put his arm around her shoulders.

  Katie leaned into him and cried.

  Chapter 3

  The Talk

  The roads in Norway were weird. The signs were the wrong colour. Other drivers flashed their lights at Aidan until he had turned his own on, even though it was daytime.

  “I’ve got something else to talk to you about,” Aidan said. “About who you’ll become as an adult.”

  Katie blinked. Was it really the time? “If it’s about sperm and eggs, I already know.”

  Aidan coughed and glanced back at her in his mirror. “Where did you hear about that?”

  “In school. When a boy kisses you, sperm comes out, and if you swallow it, you can get pregnant.”

  “No, it’s not about that,” Aidan said, off-balance from the new topic of conversation. “That’s not how it works, but we’ll talk about that some other time. This is to do with you growing up.”

  “Hair and stuff,” Katie said, ready to launch into her thoughts on the process.

  “No,” Aidan said. “I want to talk to you about who you are. You’re a Godchosen.”

  “A Godchosen? What’s that?” Katie frowned. She and her father had never gone to church. She didn’t think he believed in any gods.

  “It’s a special kind of person. It’s why we had to leave Dublin.”

  “To Norway, where we’ll get eaten by polar bears.”

  “Dublin isn’t safe for us. There are people who’ve heard about us. They want to hurt us.”

  “Is that what happened to Mum?” Katie asked.

  Aidan fell silent, then set his indicator light on and turned off the motorway, finding a service station and pulling into a parking spot. He switched the car off and got out, opening Katie’s door. “We should talk face to face.”

  He led the way to a picnic bench and sat.

  “Have you joined a cult?” Katie asked. “This Godchosen cult? Did they kill Mum?”

  “No, it’s not a cult.” Aidan looked out at the cars going by on the motorway. “I’m explaining this so badly. I wish your mother was here to help.”

  “Me too. She wouldn’t make me join a cult.”

  The thought of her mother made tears well in Katie’s eyes again.

  “She was Godchosen too, monkey. Hang on and I’ll show you. Klondike, she won’t believe otherwise.”

  Katie stared at her father, wondering what was happening. The way he was talking scared her. On the table, a matchbox flew off and fell to the ground.

  “You see?” Aidan said. “Did you see that?”

  “The matchbox blew down. So?”

  “That was Klondike. He moved it, so you’d know he exists. Klondike is my god.”

  “Your god is called Klondike? I’ve never heard of him.”

  Aidan shrugged. “He’s kind of new. Prospectors made him in the gold rush in America.”

  “So you want me to worship this Klondike?”

  “No,” Aidan said. “I need to go back to the start. You’re a Godchosen, Katie.”

  “You said that.”

  “Every Godchosen gets their own personal god when they’re eighteen. When I turned eighteen, I got Klondike.”

  “The god who can move matchboxes?” Katie said.

  “He can move other things,” Aidan said. “Small things. And only a few times a day. But you’re going to get a better god. I’m going to save up so you can.”

  Aidan ran his hands through his hair and rubbed his beard. He frowned in thought, seeming to strain to come up with a way to explain to her.

  Katie wanted to help him, but it felt like a joke or a trick. She got up and walked over to pick up the matchbox, putting it back on the table. “Do it again. Do it while I’m watching.”

  With a flip, the matchbox jumped off the table and fell to the ground. She picked it up again. There was nothing but cardboard inside. She couldn’t see the spring. Then she checked the table, running her hand over it. She couldn’t find anything but smooth wood.

  “Is this a hidden camera thing?” Katie asked. “Because those are cruel. Parents shouldn’t do that to their kids.”

  For a moment, hope sprang inside her. Maybe it was a trick and her mother wasn’t dead?

  “There’s no hidden camera,” Aidan said. “Sit down. There’s something else I have to tell you.”

  She walked back to the bench and sat on the edge, watching her father. He didn’t seem any crazier than usual, but how could you tell? She didn’t want him to be crazy. It was only the two of them now, and if they took her father away, she wouldn’t have anyone to take care of her. She felt tears well in her eyes.

  “There are people in Dublin who want to hurt us,” Aidan said. “Because of who we are.”

  “Godchosen?”

  “That’s right. Someone let them know we exist and they’re looking for us. And in a few years, I won’t be able to hide from them.”

  The tears rolled down Katie’s cheeks and her father stared at her in surprise.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “They won’t find us here.”

  Katie got up and ran to him, grabbing and hugging him. “Don’t be crazy. Just shut up about Klondike. He can be your imaginary friend you never tell anyone about.”

  Aidan hugged her, but then pushed her away. “I’m not crazy, monkey. I have one more thing to tell you. Then we’re all done.”

  “What?” Katie asked.

  “We don’t just get a god at eighteen,” Aidan said. “We get a demon at forty.”

  Katie tried to work out the maths in her head. “You’re…?”

  “Thirty-six,” Aidan said. “I’ll get mine in four years, when you’re thirteen.”

  “A demon? What kind of demon?”

  “It depends,” Aidan said. “Rich people pay to get a weak demon who might make them pick their nose. People with less money end up with something worse.”

  “Worse how?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Aidan said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I need to know you believe me.”

  Katie frowned, staring at him. It sounded like her father had gone crazy. Had her mother’s death made him insane?

  She held her finger up for him to wait and ran to the car. She found her cards in her bag and brought them back, holding them on her palm. “Make Klondike move these and I’ll believe you.”

  “He’s tired. Moving the matchbox was hard for him.”

  “It was a trick,” Katie said.

  Aidan shook his head. “No, not a trick. He’s just a very weak god. He can move small things twice a day. That’s all.”

  Katie nodded. She knew she had to tell an adult when they stopped for good. She didn’t want to, but her dad needed help and they’d know what to do. Maybe they could give him medicine and he’d be okay.

  The cards rose from her hand and spread out in the air in front of her. She stared at them, hanging in the air, then watched them drop to the ground.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the cards, not sure if she could believe what she’d just seen. They’d floated there, with nothing to hold them up, and her father hadn’t moved.

  “That’s amazing,” Katie said. “You could be on TV. Like those magicians.”

  He smiled. “Quite a lot of stage magicians are Godchosen. But I couldn’t. Klondike is exhausted now. He won’t be able to do anything else for a week.”

  “And I’ll get a god like that?”

  “A much better one,” Aidan said. “Does that mean
you believe me?”

  “Sure,” Katie said, excited. What would her god be able to do? “Do we really have to stay here in Norway?”

  “We do. It’s not just that we’re running from people. They have the best churches in Oslo. Ones where you can get a powerful god. A god who’s been around for centuries.”

  “Can that god help me become an…”

  “Astronaut?” her father smiled. “If it’s a powerful enough god, you can become anything you want.”

  Katie sucked in a deep breath. She held it, imagining herself up in space, floating around. And somewhere nearby, a god helping her every step of the way.

  “Is Mum in heaven, then?” she asked.

  Chapter 4

  Eight Years Later

  Katie watched her teacher, Einar, move down the row of desks, handing test results to each student as he got to them. When he reached her, he widened his eyes, and she knew she’d done badly.

  She’d suspected as much. She’d gotten little sleep the night before the test, or even any night that week. Still, when she turned over the paper, her dreams fell apart in front of her. Three out of six. Barely a pass, not anywhere near what she’d needed to get. Not when college places were so limited.

  At seventeen, she was already halfway through her middle year of videregående. She had a year and a half to improve, and it wasn’t likely. Her grades had been falling.

  Out in the corridor, the bell rang and Einar hurried to give out the rest of the results.

  “Remember,” he said in Norwegian. “The exams are in three months’ time. Those grades will be a good indicator of what courses you should apply for in college.”

  Katie nodded, putting her book away and slinging her bag onto her back. She knew every grade would count against her. As would her spotty attendance record. She had dozens of reasons a college could turn her down. Instead of computer science and eventually space, she’d be stuck doing computer maintenance and repairing people’s phones. She knew she could do better. If she just had a chance to concentrate, she could pull her grades up.