Blood and Madness

by Michael Clement

  Blood and Madness

  The Goblin King - Book 2

  Written by Michael Clement

  http://www.michaelclement.me

  https://facebook.com/MichaelClementAuthor

  Cover Design by Slogan4

  Copyright © https://selfpubbookcovers.com/slogan4

  All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2019 Goldenfire Media, LLC

  Books written by Michael Clement

  The Goblin King

  Into the Darkness

  Blood of the Fae

  Swallow the Bones

  Bury the Ashes Deep

  Midnight’s Broken Promise

  Touch Me Bloody

  Take Another Bite

  The Dragons of Nagon

  Conquering Her Darkness

  Master No More

  Broken By Pride

  The Bloody Road to Heaven

  The Coldness Within

  My Lady of Bones

  Lost in the Dark

  Murdering Her Light

  Blood in the Sky

  Tormented Desires

  Other Novels

  Blood Covered Kisses

  Awakening Her Beast

  Quote

  Women will be the death of me… but, what a way to go!

  Bazal

  Contact Links

  Booksprout

  If you want to read any of my books for free, before they are released, sign up for Booksprout and follow me on there!

  Facebook

  Goodreads

  Bookbub

  My website

  Author Notes

  Wow.

  The response to Bazal’s first book was amazing. I was flat out blown away. I’d like to thank all of my fans for purchasing the first book in the Goblin King. I really hope that you enjoy Bazal’s second adventure, as well!

  It’s kind of funny. The reason that I wrote the first book was so that my wife and I could go to Asheville, SC, on vacation. Usually, I write a story located along the vacation route, or at the destination, to help write off expenses.

  But, Bazal never got to Asheville (named Ashmouth in the series). No matter what I wanted him to do, he had a different idea. Hopefully, soonish, he will reach his destination.

  At least he has a lot of fun getting there. Remember, in life, the destination isn’t always the main thrust of your own adventures. Enjoy the journey :)

  If you are like this series or any of my other books, please consider joining my newsletter . Don’t worry about me flooding your inbox with email. I tend to spend most of my time writing, and very little promoting my works. It is a failure of many authors. We just have a super hard time leaving the worlds that we create to interact with this one. Lol.

  Speaking of advertising, reviews on Amazon and Goodreads are very important to independent authors like me. It is one of the only ways that Amazon will introduce my stories to others. A review only takes a few minutes, and it makes a major difference. So, please tell other people what you like, and dislike about my books. It is the only way that I will know if you dislike something. Focusing on what my readers like is very important to me. Enough said about that.

  I hope you enjoy Bazal’s adventure :)

  - 1 -

  “Did you find it yet?” I demanded in a complete panic.

  “No,” Taesa replied, as she tipped over a couch and searched in the wreckage under it.

  We didn’t have much time left. With the swarm gone, the Bone Pickers of Columbia would head to the derailed train as fast as they could get here. There was a fortune of metal, weapons, and other materials lying everywhere, waiting to be scavaged.

  I wasn’t leaving the wreckage until I found my grimoire. Stomping through the living room of the passenger car, I searched everywhere. Bringing the book into the bathroom with me had seemed like a terrible idea, even if it had been weatherproofed.

  Now, I realized that I should never have let it out of my sight. Debris covered the inside of the destroyed train car, making it really hard to find it. All the furniture had been picked up and tossed aside during the crash. Plates, spoons, napkins, carpeting, window shades, and chairs were scattered everywhere.

  “Found it,” Taesa said with a deep masculine chuckle.

  I wanted to hug her, but she was still wearing the murdered doctor’s body like a used glove. Giving her a hug, when she was currently a him, creeped me out.

  “Good job!” I yelled instead, as I hurried over to her.

  She was beaming, but the doctor’s face was a mess. A jagged cut ran from his chin, down to his boney chest. The witch hadn’t bothered to hide the fact that he had bled out when she had killed him. Instead, she had attached every available gun that she could find to the corpse, turning the man of healing into a walking death machine.

  His bone-white eyes lit up at my praise. When Taesa had possessed him, slipping into his lungs like a demonic mist, his eyes had lost all their color.

  Those pale glowing orbs were creepy as Hell, which I suppose was appropriate.

  Reaching out, I took my only spellbook from my lover. The book seemed no worse for the wear, which relieved me. There were still fourteen more spells in the book I hadn’t inscribed in my mind yet.

  “We need to go,” I told Taesa, as I turned around and walked over to the jagged hole in the train's side car. It was only a few feet to the ground, and my magic still protected my skin. Jumping, I landed with a thud.

  Taesa landed with a lot more grace than I did. With my magic active, my skin was as hard as stone, and I was about two feet taller than usual.

  It was cold outside the train car. But, that wasn’t the first sensation that I noticed.

  Magic washed over me in waves. It almost felt like I had jumped into a swimming pool filled with black magic. It burned my lungs and froze my skin at the same time. Man’s light had been banished from Earth for almost two hundred years. Only in the pockets of civilization, created by the Mages, did the sunlight still fill the air.

  Taesa and I were deep into the darkness, between Charleston and Ashmouth, near Columbia.

  Breathing deeply, I tried to calm myself, but my body quivered with dread and excitement. It had been twenty years since I had been in the Dark, and I had forgotten how it felt.

  Dammit.

  It felt like home. I could almost smell the Goblin Warrens of Bonesack curling around me and clutching my skin with their savage disdain. Not a single star burned overhead to light my way, and a pervading sense of danger nearly overwhelmed my mind. Everyone in the Dark was a scavenger or a predator. Nothing survived here long as prey.

  In front of me was another smashed up train car, and on the other side of it was the engine. The locomotive looked like it had run into a brick wall. The front was crushed, and the remains were
on fire. The massive coal car was tipped over, and its contents were scattered everywhere. The air stunk of burning bodies, letting me know what had happened to the crew.

  The flames made my eyes shift from my father’s goblin night-vision of whites, blacks, and greys, to my human mother’s more constrained sight that was filled with colors but couldn’t penetrate the darkness. Goblins could walk through the dark as if it was the day, while humans stumbled and crawled in terror.

  Color wasn’t worth becoming prey.

  But, this time, it revealed something interesting.

  Mountains of gold coins.

  The train car ahead of us was ripped open, and gold had burst from its seams. Sacks, boxes, open-ended tubs, and dozens of other containers had been tipped over and strewn about. And, hundreds, if not thousands of different random golden items were mixed into the horde. I could see candlesticks, spoons, plates, statues, cups, and even what looked like a throne made entirely of gold lying on the ground.

  A king’s ransom or a dragon’s trove lay in front of me. It looked like someone had ransacked an entire country to collect this much loot.

  Taesa gasped.

  “Look at all the gold,” she whispered.

  I hadn’t expected a Pale Witch of the Bogs to give a shit about gold, but maybe I was wrong. She stumbled forward and began to fill the doctor’s empty pockets with the treasure, becoming more excited with each item that she picked up.

  I didn’t join her. My eyes were on corpses mixed into the gold.

  Dozens of them lay in and outside the train car. Each of the men or women was dressed in a black jacket that fell to their knees. Black breeches and an ebony shirt with a purple and silver sash lay underneath it. The corpses were covered in blades, daggers, and pistols. On their lapel was a silver pin in the shape of a demon’s face with no mouth.

  My mind spun. I had seen that emblem before.

  The Silence.

  They were a mercenary company out of the ruins of Baltimore that were more of a cult than a professional company.

  Kneeling next to a man with his chest caved in, I pried his mouth open.

  His tongue was missing.

  That clinched it. To join the cult members had to cut out their own tongues. The Silence were only hired if you wanted someone killed--with no witnesses--and no gossiping afterward.

  I shivered in disgust. What would motivate someone to mutilate themselves?

  Professional assassins with no qualms about killing anyone, no matter their age or gender were expensive. What were they doing, guarding a shipment of loot?

  It had to be stolen treasure. Nothing matched. It wasn’t all one type of coin or item. It was a mismatch of things that only had their metal in common.

  The next corpse had his head caved in by a metal box. Another laid buried under tons of metal with only one foot sticking out.

  Why had the train been carrying this much treasure? I wondered. Where was it being taken, and for what purpose?

  Taking a deep breath, I shifted back to my human form.

  Fuck.

  The cold assaulted my naked skin. It felt like a whore was carving bits of my flesh off of me with a razor blade.

  Hurrying, I stripped the corpse with the crushed head, taking his pants, boots, shirt, and trench coat. Luckily, the body had been almost my size. He had been a little bigger, but not by much.

  Then, I strapped on his gun belt and knives. I especially liked the shoulder harness with a machete strapped into it. The blade rode under my new jacket, hidden until I needed it. A coiled spring would aid in the weapon popping into my hands quickly.

  Taesa was still stuffing her pockets with gold.

  Walking over to her, I noticed that one corpse was still breathing.

  Usually, I would have ignored the wounded man, but… then I realized that she wasn’t a man. And, she wasn’t human.

  Her crimson hair lay sprawled around her body. She looked like a doll a bored child had dropped. Her arms and legs were splayed all around her without any thought or purpose.

  “She’s alive,” I said, pointing at the injured woman.

  The zombie’s head looked up, annoyed that I had interrupted her pillaging.

  “So what?” Taesa grumbled as she looked back down again. Kneeling she picked up a thick golden platter. Excited, Taesa began to stack coins onto it.

  Ignoring her greed, I walked over to the unconscious woman, climbing over the piles of golden coins so I could reach her. The woman was lying on her chest. Her blood-red hair spilled out around her head. She was dressed in a dark black leather coat that fell to her knees, just like the man whose coat I now wore.

  Her eyes were shut, and I could see old, dried blood on her forehead.

  And, I could see her ears.

  “She’s an Elf,” I gasped. I had never seen one before. They were so rare that I considered them to only be legends.

  Suddenly, Taesa was pressed up against me. Damn, even in this body, she was quick.

  “Let me eat her,” she insisted, reaching toward the unconscious woman with pale, greedy fingers.

  - 2 -

  I batted Taesa’s hand away. There was something about the elf that intrigued me.

  The doctor’s corpse hissed at me in irritation.

  “Can you smell it?” I whispered to Taesa before I even realized what I was smelling.

  Leaning closer, I breathed in deeply.

  My mouth watered.

  Apple pie.

  Homemade, fresh, out of the oven, apple pie.

  Reaching out, I turned the Elven woman over.

  The center of her chest was burnt in a perfect circle about the size of my outstretched fingers. The redheaded elf’s burnt flesh was still smoking, releasing more of that heavenly scent into the air.

  Taesa laughed and rubbed her hands together. “She smells good enough to eat. I’ll even share!”

  Dammit.

  I knew that Taesa survived by consuming flesh and souls. But I was uncomfortable with it. She had saved me once by consuming several people. I regretted it, but I was happy to be alive.

  Leaning closer, I had to agree with her sentiment, though.

  The Elf smelled good enough to eat.

  Then, I noticed the burn mark was slowly growing smaller, revealing freckles on a beautiful chest.

  “She’s healing,” I said, wondering how, but not really caring. Damn, she was beautiful.

  Taesa moved in closer. This time, she was studying the wound. Twisting her head from side to side, she glared at the healing cleavage.

  Then, she wrenched herself away from the unconscious woman.

  “We need to leave,” Taesa demanded.

  “Why?”

  “Because her soul is missing, and I know what ate it.”

  Taesa tried to pull me away from the soulless corpse, but I insisted on staying put. I wasn’t running off into the Dark, not knowing what was slurping down souls, somewhere around us.

  Snap.

  Taesa and I both turned toward the locomotive which was lying on its side. Something substantial crouched by it, almost as big as the engine. Massive horns dominated the creature’s head. The smell of wet, stinky animal swarmed into my nose, making me choke.

  Fuck.

  Gagging, I fought to swallow and not vomit. It was a musky, thick smell that reminded me of an animal in heat.

  Looking closer, I tried to see exactly what it was, but the flames radiating out of the engine were activating my human sight, allowing the creature to hide in the shadows. But, I could see its tail snapping back and forth behind it like a cat, as it tried to decide if it would eat the terrified mice or not.

  The creature growled, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight. Fear flowed off of the beast, drenching the witch and me in nearly mind-blowing panic.

  It was trying to make us run. Chasing its prey was… fun.

  Eyes like golden flames flashed at us. They were entrancing, something about the bright, seductive
light stunned my mind.

  I couldn’t think or react. My thoughts stuttered and died away. Then, I felt the monster’s mind slip into mine. Mental claws slid and scratched against the inside of my thoughts, like a cat clawing the carpeting. Dark hair brushed against my skin, which was impossible… but I felt it, along with claws that slowly dragged down my back.

  Run.