The Bleed: Book 2: RAPTURE David Moody (the red fox clan txt) 📖

point. You’re thinking that if the hotel and this room, in particular, are holding steady, then fuck everyone else. That about sum it up?”

Sandra was quiet.

“Mom?” Sam asked. “Really?” she responded when her mother shrugged.

“Nothing she does should come as a surprise. It wasn’t so long ago she’d planned on leaving you behind. The only thing important to Sandra is Sandra.”

“Don’t be a bitch, Maddie. It’s unbecoming,” Sandra told her.

“So is the willful destruction of the final vestiges of humanity.”

“Always so dramatic.”

“Dramatic? Do you see what I see? It’s the truth!” Maddie punctuated her words with a flourish of her hands.

“Our big red friend already told us we are the key to stopping this invasion; we should not risk such vital assets.”

“Jesus, what goes wrong in a person’s life that they become so callous to the suffering of others?”

“I’m only being practical. We can’t babysit and fight the forces of evil.”

“To be fair, evil and good are relative terms that only carry meaning according to the perspective from which you view them. The Bleed does not believe itself to be an evil entity but rather one wiping the scourge of life from existence,” Kalandar said. “But, in a strangely ironic twist, it also enjoys being worshipped, which makes killing everything an interesting dichotomy.”

“Isn’t that the definition of evil?” Thistle asked.

“Have you seen what life will do if left unchecked? How many planes on Earth were destroyed by humankind’s actions? War upon war, and I won’t even go into the ravages of stripping everything considered of value from multiple worlds, at all costs. Or what about the Flueries of Grandalon? What they considered transcendental acts made the heavens weep. The Bleed considers life a virus that must be destroyed down to the last, so that it does not multiply again and begin the process anew. But it is not a completely altruistic event; the Bleed relishes in the consumption of power. Killing to feed its unquenchable lust.”

“Aren’t you living? Aren’t you part of that life?” Sam asked.

“He already answered when he said he was immortal,” Maddie replied.

“Nearly so, but yes, I am on the other side of the dividing line. Close enough to a god to be considered such by the likes of you, and gods, for all your prostrating to them, care very little about any of you. Gods look upon you much like when, occasionally, a person might take a brief interest in an ant as it stumbles carrying a morsel of food too big for it or goes off warring with a rival anthill. Otherwise, they are generally oblivious, more times carelessly stomping through existences than helping in any manner.”

“I don’t believe you!” Thistle yelled. “My mother was a god, and she did nothing but help people!”

“Is that so? Where is she now?” Kalandar was bemused.

“She died fighting this great war! She died trying to protect her family.”

“Or did she run before the war began, leaving you all behind to the fates?”

“How dare you!” Thistle’s face was turning red with rage.

“Is there a purpose to you baiting her?” Maddie asked.

“She needs to realize, you all need to realize, that there is no help coming from outside sources. You and those like you are all that stand between life and unlife.”

“And what about you?” Sandra asked.

“My help notwithstanding.”

“Convenient,” Sandra sneered.

“Just in the few minutes we’ve been arguing here, it’s gone up another two degrees outside.” Sam was once again looking at the monitor.

“Woman,” Kalandar was talking to Maddie. “Come with me. I have a working theory about what you did with my magic and I want to see if it is true.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Anything to do with the amount of power I use is dangerous, and I suppose where we are going could be construed as dangerous…to you. So, yes. Come, it will be enjoyable.”

“What about us?” Sandra asked.

“Don’t worry, he doesn’t want to endanger you.” Maddie followed Kalandar out of the room and the hotel. “Fuck, it’s hot. Never realized how much I appreciated the controlled environment we had on the moon.”

“About to get hotter. You will need to get on my back; we must travel fast.”

“I’m about to get a piggyback ride from a demon?”

“It’ll be fun.”

“Clearly we have very different definitions of fun,” she said, even as she was being hoisted up.

“Would you prefer my shoulders or back?”

“I don’t normally have a problem with heights, but I’m going to stay on your back.”

Kalandar was running fast. Maddie had to close her eyes; they were jostling so severely, she couldn’t see straight anyway. Add to that, she wasn’t a fan of where they were going. Straight for the wall.

“Are you still there?” he asked. Maddie had a difficult time hearing the question from the rush of air past her ears. He was moving faster than a Mower, and she wished she were back in the moon vehicle. “Humans are light…not very filling either.”

“What?” Maddie asked, hoping she hadn’t heard what she had.

“What did you hear?” Kalandar asked when he realized he said something he maybe shouldn’t have. “Makes no difference; we are almost there.”

“Might make no difference to you.”

Kalandar finally slowed to a pace that Maddie felt comfortable hopping off the great red back. She looked about at the broken bodies that littered the ground like trash after a Mardi Gras party.

“So many.” At this point, she wasn’t even sure what they were fighting for; there couldn’t be many survivors left.

“This wall.” Kalandar started bringing Maddie back to the task at hand. “It has created a lethal environment. It will not be long before it is too hot for human habitation.”

She didn’t know why this was, but the proof was present whether she knew the reason or not. There was not a part of her body where her clothes weren’t clinging like a spandex cat suit at an eighties disco rave.

“Can’t you take it down?”

Kalandar looked up at the earth looming far above his head. “It is possible, but I would have nothing left for what comes