Bad Blood by Angela Louise McGurk

Author:Angela Louise McGurk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, vampire, magic, redemption, werewolf, witch, norse gods
Publisher: Angela Louise McGurk

An hour later, we pulled up outside Tilda’s ivy-covered cottage on the outskirts of Rothbury, a small village located some distance north of Newcastle. It was a picturesque setting, out in the countryside and away from the bustling streets which had become home. The rural beauty didn’t ease our sombre moods as we slipped out of the vehicles to carry out our macabre task.

The odorous scent of spilled, dead blood already permeated the air, and I struggled not to heave as the stench filled my nose. I could taste death. It didn’t matter that vampire bodies decomposed slower than human corpses, decay still set in immediately, and pooling blood and mutilated corpses reeked of it so much more than fresh, flowing, living blood.

Maybe I reacted to it because of my species, to that tang of something rotten in gore that no longer contained life. What I needed from blood didn’t linger when it had coagulated, and separated, and gone bad as it sat in puddles on someone’s floor or soaked into their carpets. My revulsion hadn’t lessened since the first time I’d experienced the smell, back when Viola was our biggest problem.

“When we picked up Lyle, I still hoped this would be a rare occurrence,” I whispered as I went to Lex’s side.

“When we picked up Lyle, it was a rare occurrence,” she answered as she screwed up her nose against the smell. “I’m hoping it’ll stop being so commonplace, sooner or later. The shrine is getting too much use.”

I flinched. I hadn’t attended the funerals of those killed in the Bloodied Hand’s attack on Milbank. William dealt with it. He’d led the proceedings. He’d comforted the Cohort and ensured Conn’s ever-perfect body was covered so that I wouldn’t burn when they raised the shutters. I hadn’t been able to face the room full of echoes, nor the death. No one had asked me to, even though it should’ve been my duty to attend. But it would be different with Tilda. I couldn’t ask Will to shoulder the burden of presiding over her funeral. All the same, the idea of taking on that responsibility, in the room where Conn’s echo screamed the loudest, filled me with dread.

Not that his echo gave me my only reason for reluctance. My abhorrence of death itself didn’t ease my hatred of the shrine and all it represented. We were keeping the Grim Reaper in a job, and that got to me in a way I hadn’t appreciated before the Cohort voted me into power. The fragility of life horrified me and seeing so many of us die cut deeply.

Once upon a time, I’d been a deified psychopomp; a divine reaper. I couldn’t remember it, but I’d dealt with the slain as Freyja. Whatever detachment I must’ve possessed then hadn’t survived into my first incarnation on earth. Ironic, for someone so proficient at killing. But I could dwell on that truth when I didn’t have a job to do.

The others waited beside me, just as hesitant to enter Tilda’s home.

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