Read Blood Debts (The Temple Chronicles Book 2) for Free Online

life would be forever changed.
    I shivered, feeling the dark story touch a part of me that I had to fight to squash down. I had enough frightening memories to fuel my recent night terrors. I didn’t need another. But I knew Hemmingway would tell this story only once. Also, this story would be my only knowledge about Angels and Demons outside of the Bible. If Angels were watching my movements, I needed the information. I waited for him to continue, signaling the bartender to refill Hemmingway’s glass. The storyteller nodded in appreciation.
    Upon seeing his dearly beloved murdered, the farmer crashed to his knees, the forgotten purse of money that was clutched in his fist dropping to the floor like a sack of wheat. The coins spilled across the gnarled wooden planks, one coin rolling toward the tear-filled, terror-laden gaze of his wife, before briefly brushing her long lashes and settling flat against the floor in a rattle that seemed to echo for eternity. That and the desperate panting of the farmer’s breath were the only sounds in the haunted house. But they were enough to fill it completely. He had been anxious to see the look of joy in her eyes at the coins.
    The sensation of pride from her meant everything to him. It lent him his own pride. Instead he received this glassy, empty stare that would forever haunt his dreams. The woman who had made his life worth living, the woman who had saved him from his own darkness, the mother of his beautiful son, the woman who had made the endless hours of toil in the fields worth it lay before him, filling his vision like a never-ending scream that tore at the very fabric of reality. Thunder rumbled outside as if an extension of his grief. He would never be able to look at a coin again without remembering this scene. He had been proud to come home. Proud of his success at market. Proud of what the money would mean to his family. The prideful, peaceful, god-fearing farmer felt a scalding tear sear his weathered cheeks.
    He distantly realized that he was no longer a prideful man.
    A cold, amused voice emanated from the shadows. “Do you seek justice, farmer?”
    The farmer jolted, hands shaking with fear… and something else. A feeling he had not experienced in many years. White-hot rage. He stared into the shadows, only able to see a hazy silhouette, wondering if it was one of his wife’s rapists mocking him. If it was, so be it.
    Everything that mattered in his life lay dead before him. He would welcome the cold, merciless slumber of death in order to escape this haunting grief. Or he would avenge his grief on this wretched soul. It was a long time before the farmer answered, knowing that farming held no interest to him anymore. Nothing held any interest for him anymore. Well, one thing did…
    Vengeance. The sight of their blood on his weathered knuckles, the scent of their fear filling his nostrils, the feel of their dying struggle under his blade. The sound of their endless, tortured screams was the only sensation that would appease this once prideful, peaceful, god-fearing man.
    “I do.” The farmer rasped, realizing he was no longer a peaceful man.
    Lightning flashed, the thunderous crack instantaneous, rattling the open windowpanes, and billowing the curtains. With it came the downpour of rain that had been biding its time in the dark skies above. A new voice entered the conversation from another shadow of the room.
    “Together, then. We must each give him a gift. To represent both worlds. He must agree to neutrality. To live in a world of grays, as the final arbiter of truth.” This voice was deeper, more authoritative, and obviously hesitant at the situation, judging by his tone. The voice addressed the farmer again. “After your vengeance is complete, do you agree to forget this past life, and embrace your new vocation? I cannot tell you what it might entail, but you shall never be able to deviate once the choice is made. I can promise that you will not be alone.