Blood Debts (The Temple Chronicles Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

kinds of attention, as you just noticed. Angels don’t make a habit of appearing to mortals, but when they do…” his voice and gaze grew distant. “Nothing good comes of it.” He finally finished in a soft voice.
    He studied me for a moment before deciding to continue. “I once heard a story from a down-and-out farmer about Angels and Demons. It might put things into perspective for you, as it did me. Especially since you’re not bright enough to leave well enough alone.” He winked. “It shook me to my core. But I was a different man then. A virgin to the true ways of the world. Perhaps wiser. Perhaps less.” His eyes grew far away.
    He shook his head after a moment. “Anyway, the man was distraught, filled with grief. And despite offering him a ride the following morning, I never heard from him again. He fled in the middle of the night. I’ve thought of him often as the years have passed me by, curiosity getting the best of me. Perhaps he was telling me his story.” Hemmingway winked again, conspiratorially. “Alas, I never discovered his identity…” He took a sip of his drink, gathering his thoughts. I nodded for him to continue and hunkered down, ready to listen. I would stay a little longer to hear this.
    His next words enveloped me like a warm blanket. Stories from an experienced raconteur could do that. “I’ll tell it to you like it was told to me.” I nodded. He cleared his throat again, his voice changing slightly as he began to tell me a tale.
    An exhausted local farmer was on his way home from selling his wheat at the market a day’s ride away. It was drizzling, but a true rain would fall soon. He knew these kinds of things after farming for so many years. He didn’t know how he knew, but he was right more often than not. He was eager to get home and see his family after a long day, eager to share his success, and eager to revel in the more important joys life had to offer… family. He wasn’t an established farmer, with vast fields and many clients. No. He worked only for himself and his family.
    A prideful, peaceful, god-fearing man.
    He trotted beside his horse and cart up the final hill to his home only to discover his son’s broken body on the lawn that led to the front porch. The farmer froze, unable to even blink. His boy was not even ten years old. His beautiful, daring, carefree son had been left to suffer, the long smear of blood trailing from the porch and down the freshly painted steps to the lawn a statement of his tenacity to escape. But escape from what? What could so terrify his bold, courageous son in such a way? Especially while mortally wounded? The farmer could not even begin to fathom, let alone truly accept the death before him.
    His heart was a hollow shell of ice, liable to shatter at the slightest breeze. The wind began to howl, heralding the approaching storm, but it was a distant, solemn sound in his ears. He carelessly dropped the reins to the horse and crouched over his son’s broken body. He brushed the boy’s icy-blue eyes closed with shaking fingers, too pained to do more for his fallen, innocent offspring. But what he would see next would make him realize that his son had been the lucky one. The farmer managed to stand, stumbling only slightly in the growling, approaching wind, and entered the small, humble foyer of his home. Like so many times before, his wife greeted him immediately, although those past circumstances were never as abhorrent as this.
    His wife had been tied down to face the open doorway. Her dress lay in tatters beside her nude marble-like form. There were many empty wine bottles on the ground, and several piles of ash from a pipe. Enough ash to signify that several men had bided their time in this room while he had been away at market bartering higher prices for his wheat. The house reeked of tobacco. And he wasn’t a smoker. He subconsciously knew that his future path would now lead him to darker places than he could ever imagine. His