Blood Cruel (Gods of Blood and Shadow Book 1) Read Free Page B

quiet, she relaxed enough to put her headphones back on. She scrolled down the website until she found what she was looking for: Exorcisms . She’d read the page a dozen times, almost memorised the details of every church that specialised in it. There was only a list of addresses and opening hours, no real information. As usual, her gaze went to the pictures.
    Church Street in Oslo, entirely made up of cathedrals and churches. The picture looked like it had been taken a decade before, from the clothes the people were wearing. On both sides of the street, incredible steeples reached toward the sky. They stretched back as far as she could see in both directions.
    Katie left the Godchosen Hub website and went back to the normal Internet, trying to find Jaden on social media. He was offline. She wondered what he was up to. Her father had an excuse, with his demon. Jaden’s father must be truly evil to leave bruises like that on his son’s body. If Katie had been anyone else, she would have insisted her father take Jaden in. Maybe after the exorcism, they could.

Chapter 5
     
    Birthday
     
    K atie slid out the last bolt and turned the key. When she opened the door, a fire extinguisher tipped into her room. She realised it must have been what her father was using as a battering ram the night before. She took it and put it inside her room, then looked at the door itself. There was a dent in the surface where the extinguisher had hit, but the wood was deep enough not to have cracked.
    She went to the top of the stairs and listened. The screams had stopped during the night, hopefully when her father had fallen asleep, rather than for any other reason. Going downstairs, she crept, ready to turn and run at the first sign of trouble.
    At the living room door, she peeked through and saw her father bent over, picking up books. He was showered and dressed, his face calm.
    With a sigh of relief, Katie walked through the door. “Good morning.”
    “Morning, monkey,” Aidan said. He took the books and dumped them on a crooked shelf. It seemed like the wall it was leaning on was the only thing keeping the bookshelf upright.
    “It was bad yesterday,” Katie said. “Are you okay?”
    “I know, sorry. Did I scare you?”
    “You didn’t,” Katie said. “Sonneillon did.”
    Aidan stiffened at the name of his demon. She knew he hated what Sonneillon did to him.
    “Sorry,” he said again. “Let me drive you to school to make up for it. We can buy breakfast on the way. Once I find my keys.”
    Katie scanned the chaotic living room, filled with ripped pages and the remains of their smashed coffee table. She didn’t know how they’d find the keys in time for school. “Maybe I should just take the bus.”
    “No,” Aidan said. “There’s something I have to talk to you about. Klondike, can you help me out?”
    At the mention of his god’s name, the keys slid out from under the sofa. Aidan bent and picked them up. “Thanks.”
    “I have to take a shower and get dressed,” Katie said. “Then we can go.”
    “I’ll try to get this tidied in the meantime.”
    After showering and emptying her chamber pot, Katie got dressed in the nicest clothes she could find. If Jaden was going to meet her before school, she wanted to wear something pretty for him.
    Her father was waiting in the hall when she came down. Together, they got in their beat up old car and drove to the local fast-food restaurant. Aidan fetched the greasiest breakfast possible and brought it back to the car.
    After sitting and eating for a while, Katie could tell he was working up the courage to talk to her about something important. “What is it?”
    “Your eighteenth birthday,” Aidan said. “It’s coming up in a few weeks.”
    She nodded. She’d been wondering what would happen about that.
    “I’ve been saving for it,” Aidan said. “The reason we have a beat up old car and a rundown house is that I’ve been saving everything I earned for your birthday.