Chasing The Cure: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (The Caitlin Chronicles Book 5)

by Daniel Willcocks

  “Good.” Caitlin felt more relief than she chose to express. “Good.”

  Caitlin focused on guiding the ship, trying not to let her mind wander back to just how far they had traveled. She felt the reassuring weight of the radio in her pocket. She had been invigorated by her brother’s encouraging words earlier that day, a conversation which spurred her to continue and guarantee that she would find a way home after all of this was over.

  A wide river passed beneath them, giving way soon after to the crumbled remains of a town hidden among the rises and falls of the mountainous region. Snow-capped mountain tops reached greedy fingers toward them, and once again, Caitlin wondered just how much longer they would be flying. After a time, the land all looked the same. They could be anywhere for all she knew.

  “Lower!” Ezekiel called.

  Caitlin’s ears, attuned and ready for any command from him, pricked up. She nodded and brought the ship down toward the mountains, a thought crossing her mind which she had contemplated several times over the last few days.

  They taught me how to fly the ship. They never taught me how to land.

  “Down!” Ezekiel commanded.

  “Where?” Kain called back, head over the side again. “It’s uneven as hell down there! Where are we supposed to land?”

  Ezekiel didn’t answer.

  “Ezekiel!” Kain shouted, finally conforming to the man’s name requests. “Can you hear me?”

  As the ship came down, the wind began to whip around them. A rushing whoosh of sound became a barrier between the three.

  Jaxon ran around the deck and found himself at Kain’s feet. He placed his paws on the rail and let his tongue hang out of his mouth.

  “Down!” Ezekiel called again.

  Caitlin increased the pace of their drop, not wanting to overshoot their mark and find themselves lost and isolated in the mountains, miles from any safety.

  “Down!”

  Caitlin forced the ship down. Kain held the guardrail as his belly lurched. Jaxon whined, his feet momentarily leaving the floor. Kain hooked him with one arm and held him safe.

  “Slow down, Kitty-Cat! We can’t take this!”

  “Down!” Ezekiel commanded.

  Caitlin’s face turned into a strained grimace. She hooked her feet around the post, fixing the wheel in position, and braced herself. The land jumped up at them like the hungry jaws of some titan.

  At the last minute, Ezekiel cried, “Steady! Slow! Bring her around!”

  Caitlin pulled them out of their descent, the ship now narrowly avoiding the plateau of a large mountain. She looked around for a safe place to land the dirigible and settled on a small ring of water caught in the valleys between.

  The final descent was uneven, and Kain’s face once again turned pale. He burped, but he fought the hurl. Eventually, they felt the unsteady shake of the dirigible as it hit the ice, harder than Caitlin meant it to, and its nose sank into the water.

  The surrounding ice fixed it in place. Caitlin felt the chill of the snowy mountains around her as she pulled her cloak tight. A heavy silence fell on them all, broken only by the wind as small flurries of snow whipped around them.

  Caitlin met Kain on the deck and checked that Jaxon was okay. Ezekiel remained seated a while longer, then hopped down and joined them both. His face was resolute, and the red receded from his eyes.

  He uttered the two words that Caitlin had been wanting to hear ever since they took off from Chicago. Two words which she thought would fill her with comfort, but which now did the complete opposite.

  “We’re here.”

  Never before had Caitlin felt, and been, so far away from home.

  FINIS

  Mark of the Damned

  If you enjoyed this book, you may also enjoy The Mark Of The Damned, available now from Daniel Willcocks.

  Available now at Amazon and through Kindle Unlimited

  One month after the funeral, Quinton Thompson received his final gift from his father.

  A tattoo. A strange tapestry that appeared on his skin, pulling him into a twisted adventure.

  But this ink may be the key to his freedom that started before he even knew he’d need an escape clause. A deed his father signed on his behalf before he was born– but for what?

  When Quinton wakes in the night to a strange yowling from his father’s old study, he finds himself caught in the throes of a devilish deal.

  An encounter with the dead. A creature from the pits of hell. An unbreakable contract with a windfall and a ticket out of his small town. Or servitude to a hellbeast but there are worse things, right?

  Can Quinton get everything he wants and still honor his father? Sometimes there really are things worse than death.

  Get your copy today at Amazon or through Kindle Unlimited!

  Author’s Notes - Dan Willcocks

  October 27, 2019

  One year on…

  It has been a little over a year since Caitlin first made her way into the Kurtherian canon, and oh how much has changed.

  When I was first approached by Michael, Chris, and Lee to write a tale in their historic universe, centered around zombies and a crumbling world, I couldn’t have said “yes” any faster. You know as well as I do the incredible talent and storytelling involved in this universe, and to add my own little contribution to that was, and remains, one of my greatest honors to date.

  Caitlin started as nothing more than a small-town girl (“living in a looonely world!” says Kain). She was as unlikely a hero as you’d expect to get, which pairs her up nicely with all of the other incredible heroes in the KGU. When creating Caitlin, I wanted someone who clearly had the will to respond to the injustices of the world inside of her all along. Someone who would never back away from a fight, and would pursue all that is good, even if it took her to the ends of the Earth.

  Which is lucky, really, considering that that is now where the journey has taken our heroes.

  The arc of Caitlin has been in the back of my head from the very beginning of the first book. I knew that she would be the connection between the Madness and the Magic, and here we’ve seen the appearance of some very familiar faces, all banding together to come to a final culmination in which they all have the Madness in their sights. Caitlin and Ezekiel now band together with Mary-Anne, Kain and Jaxon, but that definitely isn’t where the story will stop.

  Oh, no.

  There is one more tale for Caitlin. One more book which will be in Caitlin’s future. As much as I’d love to tell you more right now, a lot of this is super under mega wraps, and as much as I hate teasing the future, I can say that the next book is going to be bigger than anything I’ve ever written. Bigger than I first thought imaginable. The end is coming, and it’s coming in a BIG way.

  Caitlin is now a long way from home, which is not too dissimilar to my own journey when I first started writing these books with Michael. I remember sitting and typing my first words to “Dawn of Chaos” during my lunch break at work. I was 26, working full-time as a Marketing Manager, and taking care of a delightful 3-year-old. I was working 40–50-hour weeks and sneaking in as much time as possible to get the words on the page and create something that I hoped the KGU fans would love.

  Now, it’s October 2019 (Halloween—woop!) and, thanks to readers like yourselves, and incredible people like Michael Anderle, I’ve been able to take the leap and make this my full-time career. Those 40–50-hour weeks are a thing of the past, I have the privilege of being able to take my (nearly) 5-year-old to school every day and pick him up, and I get to make stories for a living.

  Stories for a friggin’ living!

  That’s the power that books like this have. That’s the power of connection and imagination. It brings me pleasure beyond anything else to think that I’m providing entertainment for people reading these books. A release for people who want to escape the world for a few hours and follow a small-town girl (“living in a looonely world!”) as she corrects the world and makes unlikely
friends along the way.

  And, speaking of unlikely friends, I did want to give a quick mention to the awesome folks who allowed me to take their characters and bring them into the Madness with me. We all knew that somehow Ezekiel would tie into this mess, and here he is. Young, confused, and still filled to the very core with the kind of intelligence, awareness, and knowledge that the Founder has kept true in all the years ahead. Thank you Chris & Lee for the birth of Irth and allowing me to fill in some of the blanks on Ezekiel’s journey (though, trust me, there is more to come).

  And thanks also to Justin Sloan for allowing me to borrow some of his Weres and breathe some life into their after-years. This book to me has really been a way to fill in those massive blanks and also tell some of the tales of the characters we’ve all truly loved along the way.

  (If only Michael would have let me have Bethany-Anne...)

  I kid! We all know she’s kicking ass out in space, right now ;)

  The usual thanks go to people like you for reading, rockstars like Lynne Stiegler and her team for editing and polishing this story (and ensuring it sticks religiously to canon—I’m looking at you, Nat). Mihaela Voicu for bringing Caitlin and young Ezekiel to life in the always-delicious cover art (and Jaxon, of course). Thanks to the JIT and beta teams, and for Hayley Lawson for kicking off the Madness in style.

  The Madness has been fun. Caitlin has been incredible. Lives have been changed, a world is transforming, and asses have been kicked all along the way.

  Thank you for coming with me on this thrill ride, and I hope you’ll indulge me in one last tale…

  Daniel Willcocks

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  October 29th (2 days to go!) 2019

  Thank you for reading and supporting our books, it allows us to create new stories, faster!

  Daniel is an amazing fellow. Creative, giving, and can put down some wicked action on a page no matter what is going on around him.

  I never know who is going to enter my life, how they will enter my life, and whether it will be for a few seconds, or for much longer. One project or many. Fortunately, Daniel has been involved for many projects and a longer time.

  Like Ell Leigh Clarke, Daniel hails from England, and like her his Queen’s English occasionally slides into his writing when he doesn’t realize we use different words here in America. Normally, if this happens, it isn’t a problem for me.

  Except ‘whilst’.

  That particular word just rubs my American reading brain like sandpaper. I’m good with lorry, pants / underwear / trousers, shite (sort of), and gobsmacked. But whilst just sends a few (not good) shivers up and down the spinal cord of my mind.

  Whilst I’m on the subject of Daniel, he is a contradiction in terms and I think you should know this. It is important (for some reason I’ve yet to make up. But, it is a very smart reason – trust me!) Daniel is a nice guy in real life. Funny, soft-spoken quick with a smile.

  But, in his writing heart, he feels the need to write HORROR!

  (I know, right? It’s not something I would ever do – but I want to support him – so look up Daniel Willcocks if you like horror stories and check out a few of them.)

  I need to thank Natalie (N. D. Roberts) for pushing me to reach out to Daniel and checking on his dreams and his goals, and CM Raymond / LE Barbant for inviting Daniel into the Age of Madness in the first place for without those two guys, I’d have never met him.

  And should you ever read these author notes Daniel, there is no way I’m giving Bethany Anne over to a true horror writer to play with. I shiver with the thought of what you might decide to do to my Vampire. ;-)

  No not really… yeah… maybe really.

  Here is Daniel’s Amazon Author Page to check out his covers (the US Version) – if he has that frowny face going that isn’t the REAL Daniel Willcocks:

  https://www.amazon.com/Daniel-Willcocks/e/B00YC1YWKC

  Ad Aeternitatem,

  Michael Anderle

  Other Books by Daniel Willcocks

  They Rot (Book 1 of ‘The Rot’ series)

  They Remain (Book 2 of ‘The Rot’ series)

  Lazarus: Enter the Deadspace

  Twisted: A collection of dark shorts

  Sins of Smoke

  The Caitlin Chronicles

  Dawn of Chaos (1)

  Into The Fire (2)

  Broken City (3)

  Broken City (4)

  Dan’s Facebook Group

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/832626480256677/

  Books by Michael Anderle

  For a complete list of books by Michael Anderle, please visit

  www.lmbpn.com/ma-books/

  All LMBPN Audiobooks are Available at Audible.com and iTunes. To see the complete listing at Audible please visit

  www.lmbpn.com/audible

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