Blood Kin
Page 25
She continued to struggle with him, and the preacher kept saying “Nooo! Sa-deee, nooo!” in that new choking, stuffed throated way of his, until finally the snake pushed its way out of the preacher’s mouth again, coming down and clamping on her throat.
“Sadie!” the preacher screamed, in a voice now much like it had been in the past, and Michael’s grandparents lay together in a writhing layer of kudzu, as the preacher shook his head side to side and raged.
Michael raised his hands up in front of his face, wanting to grab onto something but having nothing to grab onto. He felt the first ice of despair, and waited for it to rip him apart. When it didn’t he let his arms fall to his sides, felt the bit of post he’d fixed to himself like a sword earlier. He pulled it out and swung it about foolishly, shouting “Ha!” and wondering if he might finally be losing his mind. He cut himself again on one edge.
While the preacher still raged Michael tried to find the tears and the deep well of sadness he knew to be there for the loss of his grandparents, the loss of everyone he had ever loved. But it was all just words in his head. He found his deep well, but it was full of family blood, and the knowledge of what he would someday be able to do, as he could hear the voices of the snakes whispering to him.
The initial flames burst through the kudzu above his head. Strands of it melted and dripped smoking to the vines and leaves below, and they too ignited. The preacher didn’t seem to notice. Now he stared at Michael with those shining, black coal eyes, both of his mouths grinning. “Blood.” He reached out his arm of snake and bone.
It was possible the fire would get to them both before either of them could run, that the last vestiges of family blood might be destroyed without Michael having to make another decision. But he could not take that chance, not with temptation slithering through his brain. He placed one sharp end of the post below his sternum and ran. There was an explosion in his head as the two of them came together, and he desperately embraced what had once been a man. The snakes came out and bit him, and the preacher filled the air with words, but Michael was not listening as the final curtain of flame came down.
Chapter Twenty-Five
SOMEWHERE NEAR THE middle of Kansas Addie cried out and slumped forward in the passenger seat. Elijah glanced over but didn’t stop. It had been a long day, and he had several hundred miles more to drive before they rested. He hummed a little tune he half-remembered had been a favorite of hers from back before the Civil War. He stroked the few remaining colorless hairs on her head. She had been quite beautiful, but quite old even back then.
It was possible she was dead. Death was always possible, even for the likes of them. He hoped she wasn’t, because he loved her dearly. He’d never thought to swap her, but the universe didn’t much care what an old person thought, or what anyone thought for that matter. He sure didn’t want a change now. Change was hard.
Something bad had happened back there. Addie had felt it more than he and that’s what put her down. Feeling was a burden, but it made them a might better than snakes in the ground.
In a few hours he would stop and try to wake her. He would bide his time until then. And then he would find out if he was the last one.
THIS IS THE HOTEL WHERE OUR NIGHTMARES GO…
It’s where horrors come to be themselves, and the dead pause to rest between worlds. Recently widowed and unemployed, Richard Carter finds a new job, and a new life for him and his daughter Serena, as manager of the mysterious Deadfall Hotel. Jacob Ascher, the caretaker, is there to show Richard the ropes, and to tell him the many rules and traditions, but from the beginning, their new world haunts and transforms them.
It’s a terrible place. As the seasons pass, the supernatural and the sublime become a part of life, as routine as a morning cup of coffee, but it’s not safe, by any means. Deadfall Hotel is where Richard and Serena will rebuild the life that was taken from them… if it doesn’t kill them first.
‘Tem’s Deadfall Hotel makes The Shining’s Overlook Hotel look like Butlins. Eerie, disturbing and yet strangely touching, you’ll check in but may never check out.’
Christopher Fowler, bestselling author of the Bryant and May Mysteries and Hell Train
‘Rasnic Tem is at the height of his powers with this effort.’
Fearnet.com
‘Truly brilliant.’
Denver Post
‘Steve Rasnic Tem is a school of writing unto himself.’
Joe R. Lansdale
www.solarisbooks.com
Imagine there was a supernatural chiller that Hammer Films never made. A grand epic produced at the studio’s peak, which played like a cross between the Dracula and Frankenstein films and Dr Terror’s House Of Horrors…
Four passengers meet on a train journey through Eastern Europe during the First World War, and face a mystery that must be solved if they are to survive. As the ‘Arkangel’ races through the war-torn countryside, they must find out:
What is in the casket that everyone is so afraid of? What is the tragic secret of the veiled Red Countess who travels with them? Why is their fellow passenger the army brigadier so feared by his own men? And what exactly is the devilish secret of the Arkangel itself?
Bizarre creatures, satanic rites, terrified passengers and the romance of travelling by train, all in a classically styled horror novel.
www.solarisbooks.com