For The Love Of…Excerpts by Artemis Crow

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by Artemis Crow

With your indulgence, I will be sharing excerpts from the openings of the current books in my series, the Zodiac Assassins, once a month. I hope all of you are healthy and safe in these fraught times.

Here’s part of the first chapter of book one, Lyon’s Roar. Enjoy!

 

LYON HOBBLED DOWN THE round stone passageway, his loose robe bunched up in his shackled hands, his bare feet sinking into a cold carpet of foul mystery muck that squished between his toes. The clank of the chains dragging behind him nearly masked the drip-drip-drip of fat water droplets as they lost their war with gravity.

Bands of iron chafed the scar tissue girdling his ankles and wrists. Lyon tested the metal of the chains, and the mettle of his escort. The two grey and white fenrir-wolves growled and held Lyon fast, the length of enchanted, braided red string encircling their necks restraining them as surely as the shackles bound him.

A spontaneous rumble bubbled up from his chest, the alpha riposte as long and low and lean as the canids flanking him, but he cut the provocation short. He, too, was an animal in a cage, poked and prodded by the dungeon guards, and trotted out for pit death matches for the amusement of the masses. As satisfying as it would be, he refused to subject the beasts to the same. “No voice, no choice.”

Man and beasts rounded the corner. In the distance, a thin ring of light surrounded a black bullseye. A jolt of adrenaline woke the piece of demon soul attached to his. Lyon fought to wrestle it back into dormancy, but the darkness gripped him tighter, like a python suffocating its prey.

The drips of water thundered when they hit the ground, the iron links in the chain slammed into each other, the booming out-of-sync lub-dubof the fenrir-wolf’s heartbeats vibrated through his body. The deep dark of the tunnel softened until he could see details, each unique surface enshrouded in vibrating glimmers of different colors. Add to that the scents of woodsy mold, miasmic excreta, and wet dog smell and he was swamped with a helluva miserable sensory cocktail.

Rivulets of sweat ran down his spine and flanks and belly. Lyon stopped moving and concentrated on shoving the demon soul to its origin in the middle of his back. The sensory overload eased, but the demon soul bombarded his brain with images of past kills, each scene shifting and changing like a kaleidoscope with varying shades of one color: blood red.

The demon soul was growing stronger each day. Isolation sucked, but it slowed the spread to a crawl. Yet, even at a crawl, Lyon knew he was running out of time. He needed a miracle, and soon, or his soul would be consumed and he would cease to be.

The fenrir-wolves jerked on his chains, pulling him back to the present. He shuffled to the threshold between light and dark, and cocked his head to listen.

The scrape of the bolt sliding across stone jacked his heart again. The screech of the ancient, tortured hinges heralded the start of the pit death match. The door yawned wide. He cocked his head to one side to see past the edge of his hood, and scanned the paranorms gathered to witness his impending success or demise.

Vultures.

A red and yellow molten glow bathed the voyeurs who hugged the rim of the pit, highlighting the crags and valleys of their tight, bloodlust-filled faces. Their hunger for gore a sign of the festering malignancy that had metastasized throughout the many paranorm species, corrupting the InBetween while Lyon moldered in his cell.

Four hooded figures adorned in black velvet cloaks with unfamiliar sigils sewn onto the cloth in red thread pushed their way through the fog-enshrouded crowd. Even when the four reached the large hole in the cavern floor that separated the spectators from the combatants, Lyon couldn’t make out their faces.

Inside the hole, heat burned away the mist to expose a flat, round slab of rock thirty feet lower than the crowd, levitating on shimmering waves of searing heat that rose from a river of lava a mile below.

Gremlins raced around the floating rock, picking up pieces of the loser from the previous match and popping the flesh into their mouths, while others swept the pool of blood over the edge. Nice try, but nothing could remove the permanent black bloodstain.

Lyon stepped out of the darkness into the light, his hands raised to shield his hypersensitive eyes. The full fetor of sulfuric brimstone slammed into him, stinging his eyes. Tears welled; his nose drained. A lifetime wouldn’t be long enough to get used to the rotten-egg stench.

Lyon scanned the shadows to his left. “Hood,” he said, his seldom-used voice breaking like a stripling mounting his first female.

A troll emerged from the dark and lumbered over, his filthy loincloth barely covering his male bits, while nothing hid the acres of fat rolls and pimpled skin. He pulled Lyon’s hood back, exposing his face.

Lyon held out his shackled wrists.

The troll looked across the pit.

Lyon followed the creature’s sight line and saw one of the hooded figures nod. Permission granted.

Who is that? A dignitary of some back-cavern ‘burb, one of the ruling Twelve…or maybe a wealthy human who’d bribed his way into the InBetween to see the paranormal monsters get their kill on? Humans, so easily electrified by the snap, crackle, pop of blood, brutality, and butchery.

 

May your words flow freely,

Artemis

Artemis Crow

www.artemiscrow.com

The Zodiac Assassins series

Available on Amazon Kindle and Print, Nook and Kobo

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Lyon’s Roar – https://amzn.to/2IB




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Leona’s Descent – https://amzn.to/2yaDfjW




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Libra’s Limbo – https://amzn.to/2q3VkNg




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Leona’s Cage – https://amzn.to/2QTbVyp

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Gemini Asunder  – https://amzn.to/2PyNUig