Curse of the Daemon Beast by Francis James Blair

Author:Francis James Blair [Blair, Francis James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lily & Rose Publishing LLC
Published: 2019-05-16T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

The rain started long before midnight arrived. It came first in little drops, then in bigger ones, and finally in icy rivulets that worked their way through every opening and crack they could find, chilling Temperance to the bone.

Night like this, I think I’d almost prefer if it were snowing.

The Felts were safe and dry in their home, the protection circle surrounding it barely visible through the rain. Somewhere nearby Astor waited, hidden in a thicket. Should the worst happen and the daemon give Temperance the slip, there would be no losing its trail, at least.

Minutes turned into hours, and Temperance found herself going mad with the waiting. Despite her grandfather’s attempts to cultivate the skill, she had never taken to it. Too easy to get lost in her own thoughts. Now here she was, holed up for the second time in a week.

What would her grandfather have made of her, laying out here waiting for some daemonic wolf to put in an appearance? She had come a long ways since that first time he dragged her out of bed when she was six. The memory of it was still fresh, and only a little tarnished by the passage of time.

They had walked to the edge of the valley, where a plateau opened and spread out to the east. Hillocks of dry grass waved in the dark, giving the impression of being in a boat set upon a blackglass sea. Together they lay in a little hollow, rifle placed between them.

As the hours ticked by, Temperance found herself watching the man next to her more than the plateau. Occasionally he would glance back over and give her a thin-lipped smile, before returning to the swaying grass.

Until that night, she had always been a little scared of her grandfather, of his stern glare and loud voice, of how he growled and berated the slightest mistake. Despite living in the same town, they had seen little of each other. The training of other Pistol Warlocks took much of his time, and the few occasions he visited had been terse and distant. Then without warning her parents brought her to his training house. She had spent the first few days there cowering every time he looked in her direction, terrified of stirring up his wrath.

Now she felt that fear melting away the longer they lay huddled together. Maybe it was the smiles, or being nestled so close for the long hours, or perhaps the dark night had given her something she feared even more. For the first time in her life, the adult next to her did not seem so much a stranger, a legend come to life. He looked like her father, the man who snuggled her into bed each night and told her stories of great adventures across the wide sea.

Before her nerve broke again, she asked the question that had been bothering her for weeks now.

“Grandpa?”

“Shh, whisper, Tempie. What is it?”

“Why you teaching me this stuff? You going to make me a Pistol Warlock like you?”

“If that’s what you want.

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