Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels
Page 232
It pierced straight through his hand. He clutched down on it. What use was his hand if he barely felt anymore? “Kevan, now!”
Kevan ran for Cloudslayer and ducked and weaved through his held blade and struck for his chest.
A blade pierced into Kevan’s stomach as the blade materialized from nothing. Blood spewed from Kevan’s mouth as he stumbled near the edge of the roof.
“No!” August yelled.
Cloudslayer slashed up as Kevan fell back. The blade cut up through Kevan’s mask, sending it fluttering off. Cloudslayer raised his blade to strike him down.
But he paused, his face agape with shock as his eyes widened.
There was a hesitation. In that hesitation, there was death. August pulled his hand from Cloudslayer’s floating blade and charged for him as his back was turned.
Kevan seemed to move in slow motion, feet coming from under him as he fell off the edge. His eyes connected with August’s.
Goodbye.
August swung at Cloudslayer. In a flash, Cloudslayer’s blade met his. “Fuck!”
He moved fast. August’s entire body shook as their blades clashed. Cloudslayer’s blade felt different, there was a power in it that wasn’t there before. A vehemence.
August’s finite blade cracked in half as Cloudslayer’s blade broke through it, sliced through August’s belly, and came out the other side.
August attempted to scream as blood came from his mouth. Cloudslayer sent one of his blades into Kevan’s chest as he was still falling. And then, Kevan was gone from August’s sight.
“No!”
Cloudslayer turned to August.
August managed to stand upright; with his weapon cracked in half, the little feeling he had was gone. He was numb to the world again.
He backed up to the edge of the rooftop. He felt a heavy weight to his movements. He had to run.
He had to find Kevan. He couldn’t be dead.
August smiled at Cloudslayer as Cloudslayer approached him, and stepped off the edge.
August watched as Cloudslayer got farther away from him as he landed hard on the ground. Blood spurted out of his mouth. But he barely felt a sting.
Blood pooled under him as he pushed himself to his feet. He couldn’t worry about himself, he had to find his brother.
He pushed forward and out into the street. He glanced behind him and to the rooftop. Cloudslayer wasn’t following him. He must be going after Kevan.
August looked for him where he fell, but found nothing but a bloody spot. He searched the streets closest to him, and found not a damn thing. Not even a blood trail.
He saw a park next to him and pushed himself into it. His footsteps were slowing. He had lost too much blood. His shirt and pants were drenched. He was getting stares from the people passing him.
But he couldn’t stop now. He had to find Kevan. It was his obligation to protect him. He was his little brother. The only family he had left. He couldn’t let him die. He couldn’t let his sins and mistakes destroy the last life closest to him. Not again. Not anymore.
He couldn’t let him die.
But August needed to rest. He didn’t know how far he had gone before he couldn’t feel anymore.
He sat on a bench. He only needed to rest for a few minutes. Then he could search for him again.
Slowly his eyelids came to a close.
I need to find him…
His breaths became timid.
If I don’t…
He passed out.
Kevan limped into an empty warehouse, his shoes filled with blood. The only thing keeping him alive at the moment was the power he had.
His wounds burned of death. His legs wobbled and sank. He was happy to actually feel something again.
And ready to meet his wife and children in the afterlife.
He leaned against a wall, the concrete cool against his back. Cloudslayer walked up to him and raised his blade. Kevan looked up.
He was finally ready to go. To finally rest, once and for all.
Cloudslayer hesitated. “Shit.” And lowered his blade. He stared at Kevan for a few seconds. Kevan stared back at him. There was reflection on his face. A warmth. He couldn’t do it.
“Why…” Kevan muttered. “Please… Kill… Me…”
Cloudslayer turned and left.
* * *
Kevan sat against the wall for what had felt like hours. Stuck in the dark warehouse. His mind couldn’t think any more, his body undying, thanks to the power in his body or because of the state of the world, he wasn’t sure anymore. But eventually another executioner came up to him.
He never said any words as he raised up his blade. Kevan just smiled as he struck down.
August coughed himself awake. He was curled into a ball, facing the back of the bench. His clothes were sticky with his blood.
How long was he out for?
“Found you,” someone said behind him.
He jumped up to his feet, but his movements were slow and sluggish. He had to force his limbs to move.
“Shit,” he tried to say with some force but it came out as a whimper.
His end was near. His only wished he could have felt it coming. So he could at least feel one last thing before his death.
An executioner stood in front of him. He was different from Cloudslayer, shorter but wore the same clothes and held a katana in his hand.
He flashed forward. August willed his cracked blade in his hand and thrust it forward.
The executioner slammed into August. But August held him in place. Blood erupted from the executioner’s mouth. August’s blade stuck from his chest.
August let it go and the executioner fell. His blade shattered into nothingness.
He wasn’t expecting August to lean into his blade. His one mistake was not knowing that August was already dead.
August staggered back. The executioner’s blade stuck through his body. He hadn’t felt it but he knew it hit the mark. He pulled it out and gasped.
His body contracted. But he pushed forward anyways. He had no need for feelings in this world anymore.
As long as he found Kevan, then he would be happy. His death was long overdue.
He had to will his steps forward in front of him. One foot over the next. “Kevan…” he muttered.
His body slowed as he exited the park, he felt the gravity of the world pulling down on him. Begging for him to give up and finally get the eternal rest he needed.
He pushed himself into an alleyway. He had to find Kevan. To protect him from the mistakes August had made.
It was his fault this had happened. If he never had killed his father. Killed Sara. Killed God. If he was never born. He would have never brought pain to the ones he loved.
Maybe Kevan could live once again.
He collapsed against the alley wall, the light slowly leaving his eyes.
If August were to die, maybe only then could all be well in the world.
This was his fault. For blaming God for his problems. For his angst.
Maybe if he died, no one else would suffer. Maybe the world could right itself.
“Kevan…”
His breath left his lips. His will to speak, the will to move, was lost. The light was finally gone from his eyes as he stared up at a piece of graffiti on the wall.
In red, it said, He is in his heaven, All is well in the world.
20
He is in his heaven, all is right in the world
August opened his eyes. In front of him was the purest of whites. It clashed in silent chaos with the infinite black he floated in.
The line where the black and white collided contrasted so strongly that it nearly blinded him. And yet, he was able to stare into the purest of whites, at the very being that existed in it.
He, with his face a blur. August didn’t see his father in him anymore. Only pure creation.
“He… I killed you…” August muttered.
“You Killed My Body, But I Exist In Creation. The Wa
vering Radiant.”
August didn’t know what to say. God was right there before him. August looked at his body, he was still covered in his wounds from his last battle, his skin covered with his dry blood. “Why…why did you create us? Just to have us suffer?”
“I’m Sorry. When I saw My Death. I Experienced Something I Never Have Before. Uncertainty, Bewilderment, I Couldn’t See Into The Future Touched By The Being You Call The Omniscient Man.”
He was a God who couldn’t see the future. He wasn’t all-knowing anymore, thanks to the Omniscient Man.
“I Experienced Fear. Queen Took Me From This World. Leaving My People To Suffer At Her Hands. The World Would Have Been Different If Not For My Cowardice. Queen Would Have Understood The Lessons I Sought To Teach Her. The Anger You Felt Would Have Never Been Seeds To Be Planted. Even Though I Was Chained By The Omniscient Man’s Power. I Still Had My Touch On This World. Through The One You Know As Sara.”
“What? She went insane. I… I…” He was going to say I killed her. But he never did in this universe.
“I Spoke To Her Through Her Dreams, I Told Her Of A Way To Get You To Release Me From The Chains Queen Had Me In.”
“She said you spoke to her.”
“She Was Right. And, Yet, I Failed Her.”
“I’m… I’m sorry… for everything.”
“It Was My Fault For Allowing The World I Created To Collapse Into Darkness. Sara Became Hysterical When She Heard My Words. It Should Have Been Someone Else. But When I Saw My Death. It Was The First Choice I Made That I Didn’t Know The Consequences Of. I Chose Wrong.”
“So, what now?”
“The Omega Key And My Body Was What Allowed Souls To Pass To The Radiant In My Absence. When You Killed Me, It Created A Disconnect. The Cycle Of Life Cannot Be Completed. My Presence In The Radiant Is What Keeps It On Earth. I Can Detach It, Then The World’s Dead Could Finally Rest.”
“What will happen to you? The world? The Radiant?”
“The World Will Not Be Mine Any Longer. I Have Lost The Right To Hold On To My Creation. I Have To Let Go. I Won’t Know Where Your World’s Souls Would Go When They Pass. Maybe They Will Build A New Radiant Or Cease To Exist.”
“What about you?”
“I…” He hesitated. “I Don’t Know… That Scares Me. But I Can Give You The One Thing You’ve Been Looking For… Peace Of Mind.”
Beside He, in the white, August’s brother and his entire family appeared. His father, mother, Luna and her kids and Sara.
They were smiling. Smiling a smile they had never shown before. The smile of eternal happiness.
“If You Join Them, You Will Lose Your Sense Of Self. You Would Finally Be happy. You Could Finally Live. The Choice Is Yours. I Have No Hold Over You Anymore.”
August stared at his family. They held out their hands for him. He would become one with them. One with the Radiant. One with creation. He didn’t know what to choose.
To ascend into the white, or to descend into the blackness of uncertainty.
Into familiarity and predictability, or irresolution.
He wanted to see his family again, to experience the love of Sara, the warmth of his brother, and the affection of his mother. He just wanted to rest, once and for all. To leave everything behind.
The white was calling, reaching for him as the black pulled on his very soul.
He made his choice.
The white pulled away from the black, from the world. It floated away until it was just a small blip in the black, until it faded into uncertainty.
All around the world, an oddity happened. The pigs stopped squealing, the beached sea life stopped gasping for air.
In the hospitals around the world, the old, sick, and diseased, far past their expiration dates, their grips on the world finally loosened. Their families cried and hugged as their loved ones could finally rest.
The howls of the scream factories finally ceased, the pregnant gave birth to screaming, healthy children. The world was right once again.
August coughed. He lay still against the alley wall he died on. He wiped his mouth of caked-on blood. He paused and rubbed his mouth again. He felt his mouth. He could feel again.
He felt the rain patter on his head, washing away the blood from his skin. He checked his wounds, they were gone. He was healed.
He breathed in heavily; there was no pain, no hesitation. He was full again.
He looked up into the sky. Water fell even though there were no clouds, the sky yellow from a just-setting sun.
He’s last gift. To wash the world of its previous sins. So they could look ahead to making their own fate.
August stood to his feet and stared into his hands. He heard cheering in the streets; he walked out of the alley and out to a parade.
People were celebrating, yelling that the world was right again. Confetti was raining in the air. The sound overpowered August’s thoughts.
But he smiled.
Above them all, thousands upon thousands of small green lights rose up into the sky. “The dead,” August muttered.
They finally had somewhere to rest.
It was a month after the Wavering Radiant disconnected from the world. August sat in a bench on a cliffside that overlooked the Pacific Ocean.
The ocean shimmered white in the light of the dying sun. The world was still beautiful. Even with a dead God.
He watched as hundreds of green lights floated into the sky from the ocean.
Nobody knew where they were going. Unlike before, now, whenever something died, its soul was visibly seen floating into the sky.
It was unsettling at first, forced to see the deaths of the world every day, but soon, everyone got used to it.
Nobody knew where they were going. They just knew they weren’t staying on Earth. But most believed that they were going to a new Heaven, another Radiant that was made from new souls, and existed without a God.
Every soul that died rose into the sky.
August thought about the choices he made when he last saw He. About escaping his mistakes, escaping the sins he had committed. Escaping to live in eternal happiness, with the family he had tossed away.
But that seemed too easy. To escape the fate he had given himself. He wasn’t going to run away anymore. He was going to live with his mistakes, the souls rising up into the air as a constant reminder.
August leaned back on the bench.
He was afraid of what lay ahead of him. Without a goal, without He guiding him, either through his faith or through the actions of August’s anger. Where would his life lead now?
He didn’t know, and that scared him. But he had to push on.
He did know one thing, that whatever choice he made in the future would be his own.
And he would have to live with it.
Maybe only then, could he finally move on.
* * *
The End
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Continue the Sinner of the Infinite series with book 2:
The Men Who Spoke Death
Available here: My Book
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About the Author
J Alex McCarthy is a writer of everything science, fantasy and magical. Born and raised in Texas, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a dream of directing and screen writing. But during a down month in his aspiring career, he decided to write a novel and found a love in the format and novels in general.
He released his debut novel, Skyeater, in 2015, and is currently working on finishing two series (a science fiction and magical realism series) alongside pursuing his dream of directing.
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Hibernian Blood
A Hibernian Hollows Novel
&
nbsp; Dean F. Wilson
Hibernian Blood © 2017 Dean F. Wilson
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All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Hibernian Blood
He came looking for his bloodline. He found a brewing vampire war.
James Halmorris has a cursed name. He doesn't believe the rumours until he travels to Ireland to find his roots, finding a whole new world of witches and vampires instead.
He arrives right at the point where five vampire families are readying to fight a war for the vampire thrones of the Emerald Isle. He's supposed to be the peace-keeper, but if he can't stop the battle, he'll have to join it instead.
Foreword
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
— W.B. Yeats
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