Divine Madness Read Online Free PDF

into the small craters that pocked his face and hands. It was as though he were rotting from the inside out.
    Still, as bad as that was, the father wasn’t half so scaryas his beautiful son. That beautiful, crazy son. And he was evil.
    As was she. Well, she was slightly insane and very beautiful. She couldn’t say if she was evil. It was the burden of the condition; most evil things were not self-aware. They did not know that they were wicked.
    Of course he frightens me. Seeing him is like looking into a dark reflection of myself, a warning of what I might have become . This wasn’t thought with vanity. Ninon had long since abandoned any pride at the famous beauty and charm that had made her the toast of Paris for more than three-quarters of a century. Like Saint Germain, she too had been a gifted artist and musician, lauded—even lionized—by society. They had both been courted for their opinions and their ability to sway others.
    That explanation was also not the entire truth, though. She feared Saint Germain mostly because once he had nearly seduced her. And it wasn’t until she had looked into his eyes, unveiled by a premature moment of triumph over breaking through her reserve, that she had understood that he wanted more than her body, wealth, and secrets. He wanted her soul. To do what with it, she could only guess.
    What a fool she’d been! How blind!
    Her inner voice sighed.
    Well, there is some use in crying over milk that is spilt. You should sleep now. Aleister is standing guard.
    Corazon , she corrected. Aleister died in the fire, and so did I .
    Ninon awoke resolved. The time had come to make a stand.
    She and her cat left the hotel early, declining breakfast but filling up the Jeep and its two spare gas cans. Smelling the gasoline made her think of the fire that had nearly killed her and how wretched she’d looked with singed hair.
    You’re not entirely sane today, are you?
    Ninon laughed grimly and then started to cough. Laughter was not the appropriate response to such a question, but it was one she seemed to be making more and more often as her control slipped away.
    Is this plan wise? The paper said that the local police were holding practice drills in the area. Supposedly looking for drug dealers, but who knows? There are rumors that the United States military knows about you too. All of you, Dippel’s experiments.
    Ninon shrugged. That could be true, since the U.S. government had raided Byron’s high-rise. But anything they gleaned would hardly be knowledge that the U.S. would share with the Mexican Federales . No one sensible would risk talking openly about Frankenstein-like experiments to corrupt officials in a foreign land. And even in the U.S. there were very few loonies with the kind of security clearances that could be had only by generals and tin gods who would hear and believe such a story. At least this was how Ninon comforted herself. Her protection was the utter ridiculousness of the truth.
    She laughed again, the sound without humor.
    It was good that there was no traffic around on these back roads, because she wasn’t in any mood to slow down or practice caution. Anymore. Yes, she had awoken clearer than ever about the where if not the why of her next destination. She and Corazon were going to the land of eternal white, Cuatro Cienegas , to find a murderous god who lived in a cave and traveled on an underground river where he collected souls. That sounded insane, of course. And dangerous. But she was running out of options. People said it was better to deal with the Devil you knew—but they were wrong. Sometimes the Devil you hadn’t had dealings with was the better choice. Especially if you needed special powers, the kind that would help you take on a enemy who could practice magic and summon demons. At the very least this god could call her a storm.
    Demons? But were such things real? Could she trust her perceptions? Might they be just monsters of the mind?
    They’re real