A Scourge Upon Them by Bartholomew Lander

Author:Bartholomew Lander
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789198733471
Publisher: Lunarium Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Tamara stayed at the Lockwood home for three more nights. In truth, she felt more than stable enough to drive herself out of there after one, but she kept making excuses not to leave. At the first sign her hosts’ tolerance for her was wearing thin she’d have been out of there, but they all seemed happy enough to have her, and Tamara wasn’t eager to leave her last touchstone to Coral behind just yet. Only pain awaited her at home, so for the moment she was content staying put so long as their hospitality extended.

Her loss still gutted her, but she was beginning to cope. She still cried sporadically, but no longer in hysteria. It still hurt, more than she could ever describe, but crying wasn’t going to change anything. She had to pick herself up and stand on her own. When she returned to college, she’d return hollow but alive. She’d lived this long by riding Coral’s coat-tails; it was past time she started picking up some slack, no matter how painful it was. The hole in her heart would heal, eventually.

That her condition had improved from I-wish-the-world-was-dead to merely miserable was due in large part to Clive and his parents, especially his mother, Lisette. Tamara probably wouldn’t have even believed they were hemomancers if Clive hadn’t begrudgingly shown her his power on day three. The family was nothing if not warm and welcoming, feeding her, serving her sweet tea as good as Mama’s, giving her plenty of space to be alone when she wished it, and always being ears to listen and shoulders to absorb tears.

In her initial grief spiral, she hadn’t fully comprehended just how enormous this meeting was. She found herself now on the threshold of discovery, on the cusp of an unknown world. Hemomancers! Honest-to-God bloodfiends, which seemed to have no interest in hurting her.

How many humans got this sort of opportunity to absorb forbidden knowledge and secrets? Yeah, sure, she was committing a felony by not immediately reporting their existence to the authorities, and she could end up in prison for a very, very long time if this got out, but holy shit! She’d already learned so much!

Clive had explained the fundamental tenets of hemomancy, the rules governed by blood type and straight genetics. He had taken great pains to explain the hemo-political landscape as it related to the twelve hemomancer bloodlines, each with a flower as its symbol.

Bloodlines! High Houses! Lords of Crimson had almost gotten something right after all! It was some vindication that the absurdity of Blood Watchers was straight-up shot down by Clive. There was no Seilheim clan, no cult of human sacrifice. Blood-drinking was a lie, Cannibalism was just as disgusting to them. And no hemomancer ever born was strong enough to induce a heart attack—with the possible exception of Lord Malthus of the Rose.

Clive explained the story of Malthus and Jacques Leblanc. He told her of the hundred years of war that ripped apart the stability

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