Prophecy

Book 1: Blood Moon

by Madelynne Ellis

Genres: Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy; Erotic & Steamy Romance; Paranormal Romance; Enemies to Lovers; gothic; demons

Synopsis

From NEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY bestselling author, Madelynne Ellis-- PROPHECY is the first part of the Blood Moon series.

Marked as a demon, Blaze Makaresh is forced to flee the ruthless mercy of the Talon, before the band of elite demon hunters deprive him of his head.

He has a single ally, Asha Lemarche, a former Talon member with a Blood Rain addiction.

Blaze's best chance of survival is to reach the Division Bridge, a rumoured passage between worlds. But what fate awaits him on the other side of the divide?

Release date: December 16, 2014

Publisher: Incantatrix Press

Print pages: 241

Sample

Chapter One: Ward Breaker

 

**

Copse. OE – (i) A copse, a shackle or fetter for any part of the body.

Also, to secure a prisoner. (ii) A thicket of trees. Copse-man – One who fetters the dead.

fig -a guardian of mahogany boxes.

**

 

“Blaze.” 

Her voice cut through his waking dream. Were they still walking? He was so numbed by the cold dark of their surroundings the lines between different realities kept colliding in his head. Each vision grew crisper, more vivid than the last. Soon, they’d overwhelm him and then he wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the present and what had yet to come. 

How long had they been running? His bare feet ached, and his stomach growled, but a wave of nausea drove away the desire to seek out food. Besides, judging by the iron-tinged taste in his mouth he’d recently snacked on something far bloodier than his typical fare of charcoaled beans.

 “Blaze, we can stop if you need to rest.” Asha stepped in front of him, her face wan, and placed a hand flat upon his naked chest. The action sent a shot of energy through him that raised every hair on his body and instantly sent him tottering back, away from her. She’d helped him escape, but she was still one of them, one of the Talon—the hunters convinced of his demon heritage, and hence intent upon his slaughter. He still wasn’t sure he could trust her, even if his body vibrated with need over the thought of her.

Blaze wasn’t sure if he could trust anyone anymore, least of all himself.

Who was he?

What was he?

He’d been so certain that he needed to know, but finding Kell’s Prophecy—a so called missing chapter from the Apostle’s Dialogue that church fools so loved to preach—had changed everything. Now, he wished he could go back, unravel time, forget about discovering his history, and continue to be who he’d always been; a boy from the Birdcage slums, who lived hand to mouth, lined his eyes with kohl and waxed his hair into impressive spikes.

He blinked, trying to rid himself of the kaleidoscope of coloured lights flitting around his head, and then peeped at his inscrutable saviour. She was willowy and cold, yet lovely, exceptionally lovely, especially the bright green of her eyes. In other circumstances, he’d have hit upon her and probably lost his head for the effort. The few stolen tastes of her he’d already had stirred his blood in a way that wasn’t natural. She turned him into the beast he feared to become. He looked at her and his heart raced and rational thoughts escaped him. He wanted only to slide into her; possess, taste, devour her, or at least that was how he’d felt until she’d magicked him into obedience.

She’d almost killed the cravings…almost…

Blaze dragged a hand across the design inked across his stomach, faintly sickened by the knowledge that even though she’d freed him from the enscorcelled cage in the cathedral, he was still bound. The new tattoo was holding him in check and preventing whatever metamorphosis had been about to happen.

If only he knew why she’d aided him. 

Not out of pity, that was for certain.

The Talon weren’t known for their pity. He could only assume she wanted something from him that was worth risking her master’s wrath.

“Where are we?” he asked.

 “I reckon we’ve come a mile or two at the most.” Despite the stress of their situation, Asha’s voice remained calm. 

 “We’re not out of danger yet.” 

They had to keep moving if he wanted to survive. His survival instinct ran deep.

 “Then we’re still inside the city?”

Asha inclined her head a fraction, so sections of her long black hair spilled over her shoulders and shrouded the porcelain-white perfection of her face. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of looking at her. She reminded him of a china doll, except there was nothing fragile about her. Beneath the scalloped lace and funereal gown lay a ruthless, battle-hardened warrior. Dolls, or Talon’s Dolls, were what the population called the elite demon hunters, because they looked like marionettes. Not that they were ever called that to their faces. Few folks stopped for a chat with the Talon. Doing so usually led to an early grave. 

“There’s daylight ahead. We’ll find out soon enough where we are.”

Daylight! Had one day bled into another? Twenty-four hours since he’d found that pamphlet and unwittingly drawn the attention of both the youkai and the Talon.

Disoriented, he stumbled over a rock.

Asha caught hold of his elbow and guided him along the path. “Blaze, I know you’re tired, but stay with me.” The soles of his feet were torn and bruised, but her touch somehow brought relief. Strength seemed to permeate his limbs when she held him, and warmth crept through his veins, spurring him so that they pushed on a little further.

He thirsted for a glimpse of the sun, and yet, here in the darkness they were safe. Beyond the tunnel mouth, he couldn’t predict.

There were bars across the exit, with a gate fastened by a rope of chain and a hefty padlock. Asha took a pin from her hair, but the lock crumbled into dust at the first touch. 

“That makes it easier.” Her words were jocular, but no expression registered on her face. 

Blaze gave her a nervous smile.

He let the suns golden rays stripe his feet first, and only once they’d thawed and a little heat ran through his veins did he venture further into the light.

“It’s clear,” Asha called back to him.

Yellow-grey buildings surrounded the tunnel mouth. They stood in a small cobblestone courtyard pitted with weeds. The remains of a mill-wheel stood propped against one wall, while ahead lay the canal. On the other side of the water, derelict warehouses were squashed together like slumbering behemoths. 

“How can we be here?” Blaze shook his head in dismay. “This is the copse road.” They were in smelling distance of the crossroads and its swinging iron gibbets. The piercing clank of their thick chains ran though the still air like a doomsday alarm clock, reminding him of the nightmare dead he saw in his dreams, spewing from the open cages.

The dreams had been what’d driven him to seek out that blasted book. Dreams and… He wrinkled his nose, disgusted that he’d placed such importance on knowing who had sired him, given they’d abandoned him at birth.

As if it mattered.

As if any of it mattered…

What had he even learned? Nothing he actually wanted to know. It wasn’t as if he welcomed the thought of being a demon, or having demon blood, or whatever the hell it was everyone suspected. 

“We’ve circled round. This tunnel must have carried things between the canal and the station at some point.”

Some point so long ago no one could remember it. The only trains that ran these days operated out of the Heights, and lord knows where they went, some idyllic paradise for all he knew. He’d never set foot outside the city. Maybe that’s where he should be headed, out into the wasteland, as far as he could go, away from those who wished him harm.

“I thought we’d at least be outside the city walls.” He sagged onto his bottom on the quayside and dangled his feet into the dingy water. Asha squatted on one knee beside him, so that her dark skirts fanned over the cobbles. She pressed a gloved hand to his shoulder. 

“Perhaps we’re not meant to leave. There’s little out there and dressed as you are, I’m not sure how long you’d survive. You need more than a pair of leather trousers to brave the wasteland, Blaze.” 

He shivered, acutely aware of how vulnerable his near nakedness left him. They needed to make clothes—boots, especially—a priority.

“Best we lay low for a while, and keep you out of sight.” Asha’s gaze drifted towards his chest, where the smooth, swirling lines of a raised brand marred the pale skin. He didn’t know what it was meant to be, but it always reminded him of fire. 

Blaze self-consciously covered the mark with his palm. It made his skin itch just to have someone look at it. Everything had started with its appearance, after he’d read that damned book—the visions, the strange cravings, his wings. 

Perhaps he had only dreamt the last part, and soaring above the city plaza. 

Maybe he was dreaming even now. The world around him and the people in it all seemed unhinged enough to be figments of his imagination. Maybe he was still inside that Talon cage, or perhaps he’d never got away with the stolen book in the first place and someone had brayed him across the head and he’d wake up soon, in a cell, up on a charge of petty theft.

The latter was wishful thinking and he knew it.

Asha’s shadow moved across the surface of the water as she rose. Blaze noticed several strands of hair had worked free of the elaborate braids that formed a crown around the top of the glossy mane.

Fuck! He didn’t want to run anymore, only to sleep off the hurts to his limbs and his heart.

Dare he trust her—this beautiful, poised, and lovely killer?

“Blaze—,” She bent over him again. “—best we don’t linger. We’re exposed here.”

They were hemmed in by buildings on three sides and by the canal on the fourth, save for a shallow ledge that led between the water and the edge of one of the buildings. However, Asha’s gaze swept skyward, her concern clearly over the winged youkai.

To think, less than twenty-four hours ago, he’d thought the demons little more than a myth designed to keep children away from the crossroads. Hardly anyone had seen one of the youkai, and most of the ones who had, were written off as delusional. The only reason they weren’t entirely dismissed, was because of the Talon. Them you took seriously. People stayed clear of them. Folks were more scared of the hunters than they were of the demons. If the Talon so much as suspected you were a demon, you were butchered meat. At least that’s how it was told. For some reason they seemed to have broken their own rules with him.

Hence he lived, despite suspicions.

Asha had saved him, not killed him. 

There had to be a reason for that.

The words of the ancient prophecy echoed in his head. 

When the Blood Moon rises, the demons’ prince will wake from his thousand-year slumber and cast a shadow across the sun.

 Nope, he still didn’t see why anyone would imagine it had anything to do with him.

The city will become a youkai paradise, a vast playground of perversity and vice. However, his rebirth will encompass many stages, during which time we will know him only by his mark.

Fair enough, that bit was the killer. He wished he had something with which to conceal the strange sigil.

“Back to the tunnel?” he asked hopefully, for now darkness would suffice.

The tiniest suggestion of a smile chased across Asha’s black-painted lips. “Hiding in the dark won’t help. We need answers, Blaze. Answers about what’s happening to you.” She gave a quick shake of her head. “We need to know who and what you are. What role you’re destined to play in all this. Properly armed and forewarned we can derail whatever plans the demon-filth have for you. I’m not ready to accept their rule, are you?”

Interesting question, given that everyone seemed to think he was destined to rule. He couldn’t see it himself, not unless they routinely put the most feeble of their kind on the throne. Demons were supposed to be able to fly and shift form at will. He could barely put one foot before the other. And his head… He didn’t know where his head was; only that his memory was full of holes. 

“Where then?” he asked, hoping she knew of some secret hidey-hole with a feather bed.

“The Birdcage.”

“Home?” 

Interest piqued, Blaze scrambled to his feet.  To his knowledge neither the Talon nor the demons had any presence in the Birdcage, presumably because neither thought the slums worthy of their attention. However, that didn’t mean it was safe. Surely there’d be a watch upon his house? “Why?”

“Because you need clothes, pretty as the current view is, and the Eyrie was the main watch post during the last cycle of demon rule. There may be information there we can use. The various archives are out of the question for us right now. They all pay dues to the Talon and know better than to harbour fugitives.”

“The Eyrie.” Blaze stared at her with his mouth agape, still focused on the start of her explanation. “Isn’t climbing to the highest point in the city going to mark us out?” 

“There’s no reason for anyone to look for you there. You don’t have any connection to it.”

Well, besides the fact the looming pinnacle stood a mere three streets away from his house, and he’d sometimes hung around there when he had nothing better to do. 

He’d rarely had anything better to do.

“Asha, there’s no way in. It’s a locked box.” He’d known plenty of people who’d lusted after its secrets, and seen plenty of fools dissolve into cinders trying to unravel them.” He folded his arms across his chest, concealing the raised brand. “Unless, of course, the Talon have keys?”

“I’m no longer part of them, Blaze. I closed that career path the moment I freed you.”

He wasn’t so sure of that, not considering how she still wore her fanciful outfit like a badge of honour.

“No keys, either.” She turned her gloved hands upwards. “But I’m sure we can find a way in. Just tell me what you know.”

“What I know, is that anyone who tries to enter it ends up dead.”

“Yes, but how?”

Trust a woman to want all the gory details. “Well, in addition to a two-foot thick growth of bindweed covering the place, it’s warded. You know the sort—pop, fizzle, croak, dead rat sort of ward.”

She pursed her lips, her expression thoughtful. Then he saw it, a brightening of her eyes. For a moment they were luminous; the green so vivid as to be unnatural. “Then it’s simple. What we need is a Ward Breaker.”

Blaze gave a dismissive snort. “That’s what most of the idiots who hurled themselves at the doors claimed to be.”

“Yes, but how many of them were actually conversant in the ancient tongues?” 

He shrugged. “Most of them could barely manage the common-tongue.”

“Quite. What I meant was a real Ward Breaker.”

“Yeah,” he drawled growing tired again, and wishing a seat would just materialize. “And where are we supposed to find one of those.” Ward Breakers—genuine ward breakers as opposed to petty thieves—were almost as mythical as the youkai. “Unless you have one tucked inside your bodice?”

Asha lifted one of her delicate eyebrows so it formed a haughty arch.

“Not inside my bodice, no. But there is one close by. This way.”

She turned, making her dark skirts swirl, and strode off uphill towards the crossroads. Blaze hesitated, and then padded along behind her trying to keep to the shadows. Even in this part of the city, it seemed madness to walk in the open so brazenly.

Asha headed straight for the lich-gate, the carved and scrolled ironwork boundary that separated the Death Ward from the rest of the Old City.

“Asha, wait. I’m not going in there.” No one in their right mind went in there. The Death Ward was for the dead. Living things had a habit of dying if they crossed the boundary.

“Blaze, you only get to pass through this gate once. Flat on your back inside a mahogany box. We’re merely paying a house call.” 

She hammered on the monstrous gate, and somewhere high above a lone bell pealed.

Blaze shifted uncomfortably. The doleful, echoic toll made his skin crawl. His gaze moved to the archive building on his left. It all looked so perfectly normal in the daylight, but the dead ruled this place come nightfall. “I don’t like it here. We’re too exposed.”

“A moment longer. It’ll be worth it.” She clasped his hand, but Blaze shook off the hold. Hell, just because he hadn’t killed a zillion demons, like her, didn’t mean he hadn’t seen a heck of a lot of violence. He didn’t need cosseting just because this place gave him the creeps.

“What do you want, Asha Lemarche?” The unfamiliar voice came from behind them.

Alarmed, Blaze swivelled on the spot, to find a dark robed figure a mere step away. All distinguishing characteristics were hidden by the vast depths of his cowl and his overlarge sleeves, into which his arms were folded. As he watched, ghostly figures chased across the weft of the robe and peeped out at him.

“Fuck!”  He back-stepped to stand level with Asha.

“Whatever is this that you’ve brought me?” The man’s hollow voice seemed to reverberate with the same dull tone as the bell Asha had rung. 

“Nothing—other than greetings, Vervain. We have need of your service.”

“Do you?” His attention turned briefly to Asha. “What manner of service? Not more poor unfortunates you’ve mistakenly executed thinking them youkai.” His penetrating gaze returned to Blaze.

“We need to get into the Eyrie.”

“Of course you do.” He drew his hood back, revealing a clean-shaven head, olive skin and a long craggy face. 

Blaze took another wary step backwards. The man’s eyes were like slivers of jet—hard, piercing, and unnatural. 

 “Talon’s mastery of the old tongues far surpasses mine. Have your master open the Eyrie for you.”

Vervain made to turn away.

“I cannot.”

“Cannot?” Vervain parroted, stilling, though the figures within his robe still moved.

“He fell some hours ago. A spear pierced his chest.”

It’d had been their only means of escaping his clutches. There were still traces of blood on Blaze’s hands.

Vervain laughed at her. “Do you mean to fool me, a warden of the dead, with your tales of Talon’s demise? Why don’t you tell me the truth instead, Asha? That you are no longer bound to him. That you’re running.’ His lips pursed. “He’s not dead, Asha, regardless of whatever you say you did or saw. I know the names of every man, woman and child who has passed these gates, and Talon is not among them, so I advise you to run far and run fast.”

“I saw him crumple,” Blaze swore. He grasped Asha’s arm, meaning to reassure both her and himself.

“Fall, perhaps,” Vervain agreed. “But not die. He has not passed this gate.” He inclined his head towards the towering lich-gate, from beyond which could be heard a baleful keening. “There are few, if any, in this world with the skill to undo him completely. He was old when my father was young, and he knows how to weave words so that the universe sits up and listens. An ordinary spear might stop his heart, but you’ll have to do more than that to kill him. But you know this already, Asha. Perhaps you just overlooked mentioning it to your new friend.”

“Asha?” Blaze beseeched her.

She waved away his question. “Will you help us, Vervain? Say yay or nay.”

Vervain steepled his fingers, revealing large slender hands, the fingertips of which were stained with ink. “Let us speak first of whether I can trust your demon lord to honour a bargain.”

Him, a demon lord—seriously? He was beginning to think everyone else saw a very different visage to the one he saw when he looked at himself in a mirror. Blaze flicked his tongue against his eye-tooth, half longing, and half afraid he’d find it grown long and pointy. 

It remained the same as ever. 

Shame, because he was getting tired of people’s responses to him. Biting off heads was starting to grow in its appeal. 

Asha leapt forward and caught the cuff of Vervain’s voluminous sleeve. “He is not one of them.”

“You no more believe that than you do Talon dead. We’ll deal honestly, Asha, or not at all. He bears the mark of the royal house. If you are not in allegiance with the enemy, then tell me, what is he?”

Hesitantly, she withdrew her fingers from the fabric. She glanced at Blaze, but refused to meet his eyes. “That’s what we need to find out. I have him bound. If he’s one of them, then he’s safe. Both Talon and youkai think him important.”

“Then mayhap you should hand him over to one of them. This cycle of human ascendancy is drawing to a close, Asha. It’s not the time for foolish games.” 

“Please, Vervain.”

Vervain smoothed the creases from his robe. Although his gaze remained centred upon Asha, Blaze’s senses tickled as though someone were rubbing an emery board against his skin and with each stroke scraped away a minute piece of information. He bristled with annoyance, and rubbed at the irritation.

“Name your price, copse-man.” Asha pushed her way between them, breaking the link.

Vervain’s smile broadened enough to show his uneven teeth. “Very well. From you, the bone of the long deceased that calls to me from your pocket, and from him—” He stared at the mark on Blaze’s chest as if contemplating. “—his nail clippings and a vial of his seed.”

Asha turned to him. “Blaze, do you agree?”

The hell he did. 

Blaze shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his leather jeans and stalked off in the direction of home. A barter economy was all well and good—hell, it wasn’t as if he had any money—but that didn’t mean he was going to humiliate himself or trade bits of himself. Not when he barely knew who the hell he was.

“Blaze?” The clip of Asha’s metal heeled boots rang against the cobbles behind him. “Come on, it’s a fair trade, and not such an unusual one.”

“No.” His grandma had warned him about giving away pieces of himself. All right, she’d been thinking in terms of kidneys and whatnots, but still… “Nobody is getting anything from me. Not so much as an eyelash.”

Her fingers curled into his shoulder and squeezed, bringing his retreat to a halt. “Blaze, please. This is the only way get inside the Eyrie. If there’s any information in there… It could make all the difference… And Vervain is the only genuine Ward Breaker I know. 

“I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it either, but if Talon catches us, we’ll both of us like it even less. He won’t cage you a second time, Blaze. He’ll put an end to you.” Her lips briefly brushed his cheek. 

Irritably, he rubbed at the warm spot left behind, wishing it didn’t cause his blood to stir so much

‘Please, for my sake as much as your own. I’ve no desire to be dragged before Talon again either. And he won’t kill me.” Her eyes glittered. Then she lowered her long eyelashes, masking whatever weakness she presumably feared he’d see. “It’ll be a hell of a lot worse.”

Blaze rubbed a hand across his tired eyes. He owed her, and his grandmother had always taught him to pay his debts, but he still didn’t like it. “Very well.”

“He’ll do it,” she called to Vervain, who nodded and tossed them a small vial. The sun glinted off his bald scalp. “You have forty minutes to collect my payment. I’ll meet you there. And Asha, be careful. Your pet isn’t as tame as he looks, nor will that scribble you have him bound with hold forever.”

Blaze instinctively clasped a hand to his stomach, where the intricate tattoo scarred his flesh and held whatever demon blood he had in check. He didn’t pretend to know how it worked, only that it seemed to have brought whatever transformation he’d been going through to a halt. He no longer craved raw meat, and his libido had cranked down a notch or two. Not that they’d really put it to the test yet. Sex had triggered every change so far, which was another reason he wasn’t so keen to come, be it into a vial or anything else. Though the prospect of maybe getting intimate with Asha, did momentarily raise his spirits. 

 “I don’t want to be one of them.” If nothing else the youkai were an ugly bunch in their true forms. Maybe it was narcissistic of him, but he liked looking good. It really pissed him off when you were in a fight and bleeders went for the face. He liked his nice straight nose and his high cheek bones. “You promised me the binding would stop it.” It was the only reason he’d tolerated such a shackle.

Asha clasped his hand and squeezed. “You’re not one of them. I kill demons, remember, and you’re still alive.”