SILVER BLOOD
EMMA E HAMM
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright © 2016 by Emma E Hamm
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover by "Mirella Santana" http://mirellasantana.deviantart.com/
Model © Captblack76
Edited by Sarah Collingwood www.sarahsworldofwords.com
Created with Vellum
To my family, for their never-ending support, love, and dedication. Thank you for always supporting every strange world I manage to make.
CHAPTER 1
T he neon sign above the shop door blinked in sporadic flutters of light. The store was tucked underneath a building, which listed to the right drastically. Peeling blue paint flaked off of the walls, and tiny specks of color decorated the sidewalk like confetti. The Open sign was the only life that could be seen from outside the crumbling walls.
Sadly, two of the four letters were no longer glowing. This left the sign reading as “On” rather than “Open”. The unfortunate owner of the sad-looking store refused to fix the sign as the message was essentially the same. The Juice Bar was on and open.
The owner of said bar was one Wren Rowan. The name was difficult to say, but she found that it had never hindered her. Wren was known to be an unusual and birdlike woman. Her long, thin nose and pointed jaw were often compared to other distinguished beaks. She was known for being fragile in appearance as she weighed little more than her namesake. Those who knew her claimed that Wren was a spritely little thing who was easy to love and difficult to understand.
The unusual shop was as well liked in the community as the tiny shopkeeper. Just like the leaning building she lived in, Wren was different. Her hair fell in curled waves that never stayed the same color and could be seen from miles away. The bangles on her wrists created a song wherever she went.
The clothing she owned was never in good quality. Wren tended to dress in baggy sweaters, wool dresses, and other strange materials that were not flattering to her shape or appearance. Various colors, patterns, and textures wove around her body in a patchwork of oddities. Her clothing didn’t quite fit her thin frame and seemed faded along the edges. Somehow the quirky appearance fit the woman perfectly.
The bells on her door jangled. The man now standing inside her store was one of many customers that would visit the Juice Bar while the moon was high in the sky. Bare bulbs decorated the inside of the small shop and hung at the end of strings from the ceiling that cast a warm glow and banished the shadows. Along the rim of the single room were red leather booths, some with holes and others with stuffing torn out of them. In the center was a circular bar and inside that were shelves on which hundreds of vials were haphazardly strewn.
The shopkeeper stationed herself in the center of the room. Her brilliant smile welcomed all who entered, and her scowl would meet those who wished to cause trouble. However, few found her intimidating as she looked as though a stiff wind could blow her away.
Wren finished wiping the inside of a fluted vial and gently set it underneath the counter to be more thoroughly washed once morning arrived.
“Rupert.” She greeted the man who had entered.
The man took off a jaunty top hat that was missing its top and grinned. “Wren. You look lovely as ever.”
She snorted and adjusted the hoop ring in her nose. “The usual? Pain or pleasure?”
“Oh no, darling. Tonight I’m looking for something different.”
Wren didn’t like that. Rupert was a very predictable man. He came in for the same thing every week. He was a man looking for Happiness in the depths of a bottle. When men like Rupert became unpredictable, Wren became nervous.
“What are you looking for then?”
“I’m looking for a little Euphoria.”
Perhaps it is important at this point to explain the unfortunate circumstances which led the world to the current time.
In the year 2600, the End occurred. It wasn’t always known by this name, though some may have called it the Reckoning, the Apocalypse, or Judgement Day. Sadly, none of the expected endings of the world happened. There was no meteor, no nuclear war, and no environmental collapse.
The End was a collapse of some kind, in its own way. Year 2600 was a special time for the world. The walls that had always kept the magical world and the human world separate disappeared. A separate dimension than ours was slowly being destroyed. To escape their inevitable fate, they merged their own world with the human world.
Magical creatures and supernatural forces flooded into the human realm until they were effectively combined. This was a very uncomfortable time for both magical and non magical folks. There was no easy way for humans to explain what happened, and the magical creatures weren’t exactly happy to be torn from their homes.
However, one fact remained: the world could not sustain so many bodies or creatures. Because of this, the magical community was forced to share bodies with the humans. They were the interlopers.
A simple family fell asleep in their beds after saying goodnight to their five children. The next morning, a Sunday ironically enough, they all awoke to find the world exactly the same, yet there was another voice inside their head and another cognizant creature sharing the large space of their body.
Humans, being humans, had to explain this somehow. They sectioned these creatures into two categories they could understand.
Demons and Angels.
Now there’s no such thing as black and white, especially in the magical world. There are far too many colors for any
