Tag Archives: spooky

Crimson tears

from my book, The Wounded King:

He took a breath, the words coming, swollen and thick and carried on the stench of impending death.

“Beyond the Veil, they suffer, brother. The King, my mother, the Darkness around them, trapping them. It waits for me. It’s here –”

“No,” I interrupted. “I’m here with you.”

“No, no,” he insisted. “Here in the Temple, in the palace, outside in the city, in the night, in the sky, in the air, the wind, the sun. In the dark.”

“You’re safe,” I assured him, my hand once more on his, the square cloth still on his eyes blinding him. “I’m here and you’re safe.”

He released me, pushing me away. His hands reached to remove the cloth.

He opened his eyes.

They were unseeing globes of wounded white.

He spoke, crimson tears staining his scarred and bloody cheeks as he blinked.

“The Darkness, it’s here with us.”

Behind me, the Old Man bowed, the rustle of his garments distracting me.

“It’s here,” my brother, the King, repeated, the wounded globes now closed.

I turned.

Eyes rimmed red, sallow skin the color of sun-bleached sand, holes where healthy teeth had been only hours ago, each heavy step a great effort, she approached.

Mother.

Oceans of blood

How about an excerpt from my book Martuk … The Holy?

Pen at rest, she sat back, looking at me, her fingers fondling the silk scarf tied beneath her chin.

I had stumbled upon her speaking in a bookstore on Boulevard Saint Germain. An American author and PhD, she had written a slender, earnest tome on ancient religion, a popular work weaving archaic beliefs and myths with those principles we hold in our modern world.

Intrigued, I stopped to listen. Learning of her second life as a psychologist, I requested her card.

And now here I sat, fighting the urge to lunge at her, lift her by her slender neck and slam her against the wall, the back of her skull smashing against the diploma, shards of glass raining to the floor.

Of ripping the expensive cloth protecting her tender flesh, tearing the skin between her breasts, cracking open her rib cage and stealing her heart, that feeble ball of cold, uncaring muscle. Void of compassion. Of understanding. The glistening lump now anemically beating in my monstrous red paw.

My fingers puncturing those delicate sockets above her nose to pluck out the slimy dark nuggets of judgment. Of disapproval. The fantasy of spiriting them from their safe little caves to roll about in my palm now obsessing me.

“I feel your frustration,” she lied, staining the white with more scribbling.

I suppressed the urge to smile.

“But it’s important to understand as much as I can,” she continued, her pen again at rest. “About you. Your experiences. Your life. From there we begin the real work of dealing with this feeling of powerlessness. With these dreams. Your nightmares.

“Your demons.”

The pen began its destruction of a new page, the first tossed aside and lying face down. Exhausted by the scratching, no doubt.

I shifted in my chair.

Demons, she said. I didn’t want to deal with demons. Demons were dangerous. I turned my back on demons long ago. That wasn’t me anymore.

“So, you can’t die,” she suddenly said.

“Yes. I mean, no, I can’t.”

“How so?”

“I just can’t.”

“Okay,” agreed She of the Hyperactive Pen, “you’re invincible.”

“Of course not. I didn’t say that. I’m just like you. Normal. Just normal, you know? Nothing special. I just can’t die.”

“Normal?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you claim immortality. Is that normal?” Her eyes glared at me from beneath a curtain of black bangs.

“How?” she then asked, her tone softening. “How did you achieve this immortality?”

Glimpses of an altar piercing the stars clouded my vision. The chanting of Priests. An unseen crowd cheering far below. Oceans of blood for everlasting life, an Old Woman whispered. Bloody footprints on polished stone. The cloying scent of decaying flesh and the splitting of blistered skin as it roasted under an unforgiving sun.

Lips kissing mine and linen dripping red. Weeping, lying, bleeding, dying, the blade in His hand as He straddled me, both of us lost in the roar of the Darkness.

No.

“walking on the bones”

(excerpt from The Elder, the next book in The Martuk Series)

Elder …

I wiped my cheek and lifted my head.

The Child had stopped, her body still, her blood-drenched toes far from the ground, her face stained red as she watched me with bleeding eyes.

The Seer had stopped, the bent body now still, waiting.

The wolves were quiet, their bodies hidden in the dark, waiting.

She spoke, The Child, her words silently on The Seer’s lips.

“Made of ash, of stone, burning from the bones, warriors and Queens, a woman trapped in time, a rival drawing near, hatred, love, pain, hatred, love, pain, hatred … ”

The bones crunched and snapped as her head circled quick, chin to chest and then back, her mouth opened and closed, opened and closed.

Then she paused.

Breathed.

And then spoke again.

“He will come, the one you seek, with the death, the life, stepping through the light, walking on the bones.”

She then closed her eyes …

Her bloody eyes found mine …

(excerpt from The Elder, the soon-to-be-released second book in The Martuk Series)

The Seer sat motionless behind the ripped and tattered woolen.

I waited.

Her head forced back, she gasped, The Child, the throat swollen and round, the skin cracked and bleeding as it stretched.

The wolves paused, eyes narrow and rumbles in their chests as they backed away.

The Seer cocked its head, listened.

The Child’s head dropped with a crack. She swallowed, licked her lips, her chin lifted, and then her bloody eyes found mine.

She spoke.

“Man from the mountains …” she began, The Seer mouthing the words, “He will come, will gain what you seek, will lose all in an end that never ends.

“Stone stained red … a darkness … a hunger …”

She stopped.

Her mouth suddenly opened in a cry, the power of The Seer ebbing as reality returned, the girl convulsed by sobs as the tears briefly ran.

And then, quiet once more, powerless and trapped in the shadows near the crumbled grey of the ceiling, her tiny, bloodstained body turned.

First her head, the neck rotating with cracks and snaps and pops. And then the slender shoulders, the chest, the arms and torso and waist, the little legs dangling as they followed.

The Seer swayed, the bent and broken body listing to and fro as The Child’s turns quickened, her pretty mouth held slack as the blood ran and the shadows danced and the wolves growled from the dark, their eyes aglow in the firelight.

Faster and faster she spun in the air, faster and faster The Seer swayed, lower and lower the wolves growled. My head spun as sweat stained my brow and bile rose in my throat, the dark now too dark, the rank air stealing my breath.

I closed my eyes, my palm to my forehead, the chill replaced by a sudden heat as I laid low, taken by a sudden illness. An odd sensation of warmth and cold and sickness and fear. The unfamiliar feeling of being trapped. Powerless.

The Child turned, The Seer bobbed behind the tattered woolen, the wolves now howled, and the cool of the ground soothed my cheek as I fell to my knees and then lay flat, my fingers threaded through the soil as I clutched the earth while my head spun and my stomach turned and I fought for breath.

Priest …

Liar …

King …

Yes.

Wounded King …

Yes.

He is coming …

Driven to rule and afraid to die …

Barring any unexpectedly HUGE edits — unlikely but not impossible –, my upcoming book The Elder, the second in The Martuk Series, should be live as early as next week.

Want a blurb?

Oh, alright. Here ya go …

Driven to rule and afraid to die, a powerful Priest sacrifices everything for “an end that never ends” from a Darkness older than Time.

The angel on my shoulder says I might have gone too far with this book. The devil on the other insists it’s just right.

Who to believe? (^~^)

I had lost — an excerpt from The Wounded King

An excerpt from The Wounded King, the first book in The Martuk Series, a collection of Short Fiction based on the full-length novel Martuk … The Holy

I ran.

The shadows followed.

It had dropped me, the Darkness, Its strength not yet great enough to hold me.

But I had climbed to my feet, the dark unbelievably dark, my ankles stained by the moist heat as I tripped and then stumbled and, tumbling down the hill, ran.

She was on the ground, Mother, oblivious, the dirt against her cheek, her hands buried in the earth, the shadow rolling and twisting around her as It ate her whispers, her sighs, her tears.

And now I sprinted toward the city under the glare of a bright sun as It chased me, churning and turning and whipping in the dust.

My heart pounded in my ears as the rocks cut my feet, the Darkness’s desire for me inflamed by the blood staining the ground.

The city drew near, the thick walls and heavy gates in sight.

In the quiet calm of morning she had urged me to leave the city with her. Had insisted on passing through the gate to climb the small hill so we could speak away from those who would see, our secrets unknown to those who would hear.

She had lied, my Mother.

I stumbled and fell.

The heat was on me, the moist fingers wrapped around my ankle, my calf burning in the heat, the flesh raw under Its touch.

I kicked It free as I crawled, my hands pawing at the dirt as I climbed to my feet to run again.

It reared back, the shadow lunging forward like a snake before It followed, the Dark rolling on the ground like a wave.

I was close, so close, to the city. To safety.

What if the Darkness followed me beyond the gates?, I suddenly thought as my heart beat in my ears. What’s to stop It were it to slip into the city and torment me there? Is there anything to keep It from swallowing me while I sleep?

What if this monstrosity were inescapable?

The guards recognized me, the brawny men in a rush to open the gates for the Almost King.

I darted through.

The Darkness followed.

I felt It on my heels, my calves, the back of my thighs, my back, my neck, the fingers around my skull as I ran and ran, the pain a constant sting, the burn excruciating as the Darkness took hold of me.

I had lost.