Blood Cruel (Gods of Blood and Shadow Book 1) (2 page)

“Is this a hidden camera thing?” Katie asked. “Because those are cruel. Parents shouldn’t do that to their kids.”

For a moment, hope sprang inside her. Maybe it was a trick and her mother wasn’t dead?

“There’s no hidden camera,” Aidan said. “Sit down. There’s something else I have to tell you.”

She walked back to the bench and sat on the edge, watching her father. He didn’t seem any crazier than usual, but how could you tell? She didn’t want him to be crazy. It was only the two of them now, and if they took her father away, she wouldn’t have anyone to take care of her. She felt tears well in her eyes.

“There are people in Dublin who want to hurt us,” Aidan said. “Because of who we are.”

“Godchosen?”

“That’s right. Someone let them know we exist and they’re looking for us. And in a few years, I won’t be able to hide from them.”

The tears rolled down Katie’s cheeks and her father stared at her in surprise.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “They won’t find us here.”

Katie got up and ran to him, grabbing and hugging him. “Don’t be crazy. Just shut up about Klondike. He can be your imaginary friend you never tell anyone about.”

Aidan hugged her, but then pushed her away. “I’m not crazy, monkey. I have one more thing to tell you. Then we’re all done.”

“What?” Katie asked.

“We don’t just get a god at eighteen,” Aidan said. “We get a demon at forty.”

Katie tried to work out the maths in her head. “You’re…?”

“Thirty-six,” Aidan said. “I’ll get mine in four years, when you’re thirteen.”

“A demon? What kind of demon?”

“It depends,” Aidan said. “Rich people pay to get a weak demon who might make them pick their nose. People with less money end up with something worse.”

“Worse how?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Aidan said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I need to know you believe me.”

Katie frowned, staring at him. It sounded like her father had gone crazy. Had her mother’s death made him insane?

She held her finger up for him to wait and ran to the car. She found her cards in her bag and brought them back, holding them on her palm. “Make Klondike move these and I’ll believe you.”

“He’s tired. Moving the matchbox was hard for him.”

“It was a trick,” Katie said.

Aidan shook his head. “No, not a trick. He’s just a very weak god. He can move small things twice a day. That’s all.”

Katie nodded. She knew she had to tell an adult when they stopped for good. She didn’t want to, but her dad needed help and they’d know what to do. Maybe they could give him medicine and he’d be okay.

The cards rose from her hand and spread out in the air in front of her. She stared at them, hanging in the air, then watched them drop to the ground.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the cards, not sure if she could believe what she’d just seen. They’d floated there, with nothing to hold them up, and her father hadn’t moved.

“That’s amazing,” Katie said. “You could be on TV. Like those magicians.”

He smiled. “Quite a lot of stage magicians are Godchosen. But I couldn’t. Klondike is exhausted now. He won’t be able to do anything else for a week.”

“And I’ll get a god like that?”

“A much better one,” Aidan said. “Does that mean you believe me?”

“Sure,” Katie said, excited. What would her god be able to do? “Do we really have to stay here in Norway?”

“We do. It’s not just that we’re running from people. They have the best churches in Oslo. Ones where you can get a powerful god. A god who’s been around for centuries.”

“Can that god help me become an…”

“Astronaut?” her father smiled. “If it’s a powerful enough god, you can become anything you want.”

Katie sucked in a deep breath. She held it, imagining herself up in space, floating around. And somewhere nearby, a god helping her every step of the way.

“Is Mum in heaven, then?” she asked.

Chapter 4

Eight Years Later

K
atie watched her teacher, Einar, move down the row of desks, handing test results to each student as he got to them. When he reached her, he widened his eyes, and she knew she’d done badly.

She’d suspected as much. She’d gotten little sleep the night before the test, or even any night that week. Still, when she turned over the paper, her dreams fell apart in front of her. Three out of six. Barely a pass, not anywhere near what she’d needed to get. Not when college places were so limited.

At seventeen, she was already halfway through her middle year of videregående. She had a year and a half to improve, and it wasn’t likely. Her grades had been falling.

Out in the corridor, the bell rang and Einar hurried to give out the rest of the results.

“Remember,” he said in Norwegian. “The exams are in three months’ time. Those grades will be a good indicator of what courses you should apply for in college.”

Katie nodded, putting her book away and slinging her bag onto her back. She knew every grade would count against her. As would her spotty attendance record. She had dozens of reasons a college could turn her down. Instead of computer science and eventually space, she’d be stuck doing computer maintenance and repairing people’s phones. She knew she could do better. If she just had a chance to concentrate, she could pull her grades up.

Jaden was waiting in the corridor outside, wearing the American flag t-shirt she’d told him not to. It made him look like some kind of crazy super-patriot. However, she could tell by his grin he was wearing it to irritate her. His smile faded when he saw her frown. “No good?”

“Is it ever?” Katie said. “Let’s go somewhere quiet.”

Jaden put his arm around her as they walked through the school, his way of being friendly. She treasured it, despite knowing there was nothing more than friendship behind it.

He’d grown so tall, he had to reach down to squeeze her shoulder reassuringly. She glanced up at him, his black locks falling in front of his face when he smiled back. With his free hand, Jaden pushed them aside. When she looked into his blue eyes, she felt as if she were floating in space already, drifting away with no way to stop herself.

He let go of her shoulder to push the door open for both of them, leading the way to their favourite tree at the back of the school. Some other kids used it as a make-out spot, but not in the winter. Now everyone hung out inside. Only crazy people like them would brave the cold to talk in private.

“So,” Jaden said, leaning against the tree. “How bad was it?”

“A three,” Katie said.

“That’s not terrible. I have plenty of threes.”

“You barely speak the language,” Katie said. “And even then, you use that American accent of yours to charm the teachers.”

“I can’t help it if I sound like Matthew McConaughey.”

“More like Elmer Fudd.”

Jaden grinned. “Be vewy quiet.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Katie said. “You think NASA take people who flunk science?”

Jaden shrugged. “You could always switch to sports, like me.”

She shook her head at him. Sometimes he seemed not to realise what he was saying. She was short and clumsy; the last thing she should be doing was sports. Although, if her grades kept plummeting, she wasn’t cut out for anything brain related either.

“You should talk to your father,” Jaden said. “Get him to help you study. He must see how important your grades are to you.”

He didn’t offer to talk to Aidan, not anymore. Katie had warned him often enough that he knew not to mention it. Her home was off limits.

“Maybe,” she said, knowing she couldn’t.

“Or I can help you study,” Jaden said.

Katie nodded, but that was out of the question too. The school closed after hours. “Where? Your house?”

He shook his head and turned away for a moment. She regretted bringing it up. She’d never seen his house, just as he’d never seen hers.

A part of her suspected his father was abusive. Jaden had bruises sometimes that he claimed were from walking into a door. However, from the way he moved on the basketball court, Katie doubted he’d ever be as clumsy as that.

Sometimes she dreamt they both revealed their secrets and were both Godchosen. As soon as they said it, they fell into each other’s arms. As if that was the only thing holding them apart, instead of how different they were. He was tall and handsome, where she was short and mousy.

It wasn’t just her curse that kept her from telling Jaden how she felt, though. It was the risk of losing the only friend she had at the school. Jaden was friends with almost everyone he’d ever met, but chose to spend time with her instead. She suspected it was just out of loyalty. She’d spoken to him on his first day of school, five years ago, before anyone else felt comfortable talking in English. And he’d stuck by her side ever since.

“Speaking of home,” Jaden said. “I should get back. It’s getting late.”

She knew it wasn’t late, but the sun was sinking and he never seemed to want to be out after dark. Maybe he was a werewolf, and he’d turn into slavering beast? The bruises could be from his victims, trying to fight him off. She dismissed the thought. Jaden wasn’t the monster, his father was.

“Meet me before school tomorrow?” Katie asked. “We can talk then?”

“Sure,” Jaden said. “And don’t forget about my game on Saturday.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Katie said. She was Jaden’s moral support. His father wouldn’t be there. Just as her own wouldn’t.

Leaving him, she walked through the school to her locker, leaving any books she could there. Her bag was still heavy as she hurried for the bus that would take her home. She needed a lot of books with her. She had to try to study, at least.

There were other teenagers on the bus, but they ignored her. Instead, she found a seat on her own, put on her seatbelt, and sat with her bag clasped across her stomach.

The sun dropped quickly as the bus drove into town. By the time it rolled over the bridge to Kråkerøy, the island she lived on, it was dark enough for all the streetlights to have come on. She didn’t remember too much from Ireland, but she knew it didn’t get dark at four in the afternoon. If she missed anything, it was a few extra rays of daylight.

The bus had a lot of adults coming home from work. They all looked tired, staring at their phones. One had a newspaper, which seemed out of place. She recognised all of them, though. They took the same bus every day. Just like she’d see the same faces the next day on the bus to school. Fredrikstad wasn’t a big place; after a while, you recognised almost everyone you saw.

The bus stopped and Katie unstrapped, hurrying to the door to disembark. As soon as she stepped onto the pavement, however, her feet didn’t seem to want to move any further. Her father had been bad in the last few weeks, getting worse every day. She didn’t know what would be waiting for her at home. Part of her wanted to turn around and walk the other way.

Forcing herself, she moved, back to the blue house with the peeling paint and muddy garden, far away from any other houses. She heard a shout as she walked up the driveway, a guttural cry that let her know her father’s demon was plaguing him again.

With careful, quiet steps, she took her key from her pocket. When she got to the front door, she slipped it in and turned, wincing as the lock clicked. She cracked the door open and looked through the gap. The hallway was a mess, but there was no sign of her father. She could hear his shouts from the living room. Slipping inside, she closed the front door and locked it behind her.

As the lock turned over, the shouts stopped. The silence made her heart jump. She turned and ran for the stairs, hearing the living room door open behind her. Running feet pursued her as she lunged up the stairs for her room. She didn’t look back until her doorway. As she slammed it shut, she caught a glimpse of her father’s face at the top of the stairs, purple with rage and pain.

She drove the main bolt on her door home, just as it shuddered from her father’s charge. She pushed the other three bolts on the left of the door, then the three on the right. Finally, she put the key in the lock and turned it, adding the pathetic built-in lock to her defences.

Taking a deep breath to try to calm down, Katie took off her school bag and threw it on the bed, then went to her desk and sat. The door shuddered again and again as her father tried to break in. The locks rattled with each charge. She knew he’d feel the bruises in the morning, but the locks would hold. He starved himself to keep his weight low. Too low to get through the door, no matter how he ran at it.

She tried to ignore him and turned to her computer, switching it on. Taking her headphones from the desk, she took another deep breath. She couldn’t help but glance back at the door. Even when she turned her music on, she could still hear the impacts of her father’s body on the thick wood.

A few clicks brought up the document she’d been working on: her study of the moon. She had her space blog, with its three loyal followers, but she barely updated it anymore. Not since her father had gotten worse. She stared at the text for a while, but she couldn’t concentrate, so she closed the document and opened her browser in private mode instead.