Empire of the Vampire (Empire of the Vampire, #1)

by Jay Kristoff

Take hold of my hand, For you are no longer alone. Walk with me in hell. —MARK MORTON

ASK ME NOT if God exists, but why he’s such a prick. Even the greatest of fools can’t deny the existence of evil. We dwell in its shadow every day. The best of us rise above it, the worst of us swallow it whole, but we all of us wade hip-deep through it, every moment of our lives. Curses and blessings fall on the cruel and just alike. For every prayer heeded, ten thousand go unanswered. And saints suffer alongside the sinners, prey for monsters spat straight from the belly of hell. But if there is a hell, mustn’t there also be a heaven? And if there is a heaven, then can’t we ask it why? Because if the Almighty is willing to put an end to all this wickedness, but somehow unable to do so, then he’s not as almighty as the priests would have you believe. If he’s both willing and able to put paid to it all, how can this evil exist in the first place? And if he’s neither willing nor able to lay it to rest, then he’s no god at all.

The only possibility remaining is that he can stop it. He simply chooses not to. The children snatched from parents’ arms. The endless plains of unmarked graves. The deathless Dead who hunt us in the light of a blackened sun. We are prey now, mon ami. We are food. And he never lifted a fucking finger to stop it. He could have. He just didn’t. Do you ever wonder what we did, to make him hate us so?