Title: The Seven Hungers: Blood Grove
Author: Morgan Quaid
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Horror
Book Blurb:
“I have not come to bring war, but to gift eternity.” An enigmatic figure emerges into the Hallowed World, promising a gift of unfathomable worth to the people of earth. Crown sorcerer, Ambrose Drake must negotiate terms with this peaceful invader, but Drake and his companions soon find themselves drawn into a warped reality from which there seems no escape.
Book three of The Seven Hungers series follows Drake into the depths of his own psyche, and beyond!
Excerpt:
1. Wicked Witch
We move through a silhouetted forest which looks to have been plucked from a Grimm fairytale. Long crooked branches reach out from the shadows, their gnarled limbs spider-like in the gloomy twilight, menacing and predatory. They seem to creak and groan as we walk past, as though straining to be rid of their own limitations, reaching for us with dark hunger, but unable to break past their rooted reality.
She takes me gently by the hand, her eyes urgent, willing me on through the dark landscape of my mind. She looks just like I remember her, dark hair, stern but beautiful features, and an intensity which is only rarely displaced by a smile. “Winter by name, winter by nature,” was what the Academy students whispered, though not in my presence and certainly not in hers.
She wears her most recent face, lined with experience and grown more beautiful with years of grief and struggle, if such a thing is possible. Even in this shadowy dreamworld, the touch of her hand fills me with an adolescent thrill.
She pulls me forward, eyes scanning the horizon for signs of danger.
“You need to see this,” Winter says, leading me past nebulous shapes that reach towards us from all sides and out into a clear break in the trees.
The ground is soft under foot, littered with moss and twiggy debris, blanketed by a foot of mist that gives way reluctantly as we move past. The thick murky fog clinging to the ground smells engineered, giving off a joke shop chemical reek which undercuts the menacing vibe of our surroundings somewhat. The surrounding forest, likewise, is only frightful from a distance. The closer we draw to carved foam boulders, or the moss-covered limbs of leering, leafless trees, the more unreal it all seems.
Winter pulls me down into a crouch, knocking me out of my moment of reflection and motioning towards a murky shape in the distance.
“There, at the edge of the clearing. We need to get closer, but we’ll have to wait until she starts to feed, otherwise she’ll know we’re here.”
My vision slowly comes into focus, revealing a childhood memory made manifest, the creepy cottage from a Halloween themed carnival, complete with crooked doors and windows, fake cobwebs and an eerie werewolf howl set on a loop that echoes around the clearing periodically.
I remember this place, remember the fear I felt as a child being dragged along to the witch’s hut by my brothers, their cruel smiles betraying warring emotions of jealousy and affection. So it is with the youngest child, looking with adoration and fear at brother’s who are twice my size, yet somehow bitterly envious of my place in the world.
“Come on,” Winter says pulling me towards the wicked witch’s hut, just as my brothers did so many years ago.
I feel an irrational sense of dread rise from within, but I can’t be sure whether the feeling is justified or simply a product of the dream itself. There is a memory here that I’ve kept hidden for my entire adult life. Seeing the witch’s hut here, even in this dreaming state, brings up childish fears that I don’t seem to be able to quell.
We move around the side of the building, and I can’t help but note the fake aging painted onto its wooden veneer. Close up, the shack is a hastily crafted thing of carved foam and cheap pine, painted to look good from a distance, but losing its luster under closer scrutiny.
Winter pulls me close, huddled beneath a crooked window in one side of the witch’s shack. She guides me up and we lean in, squinting through foggy glass at the dark interior of the hut. A figure hunches over itself in one corner of the room, grotesque and menacing even with its back turned. Long, distended limbs stretch too far and at impossible angles as the creature devours its prey. Crimson blood spills onto the floor, spattering over the creature’s black cloak as it feeds with ravenous abandon.
Fear grips my heart, squeezing the breath out of me as I watch the horrific form feed. That momentary slip into a pre-adolescent state passes swiftly though, dampened by years of experience encountering horrors much more troubling that what I’m seeing ahead of me. I fight against the fear inducing logic of the dream and try to remember who I am, where I am.
“What am I seeing here?” I whisper.
Winter leans in close, her breath kissing my ears. “That’s Lilith, or at least your mind’s representation of her in this place. She’s feeding, eating the souls of her people to sustain herself.”
I watch as the creature within continues to feast, plucking helpless creatures which look like puppies from a cage in the corner of the room and devouring them one by one. I can sense Lilith here, but I’ve never seen her this way before. She’s only ever appeared to me wearing Winter’s face, just like she did the first time we met when she hooked my mind with a powerful mesmer and tricked me into freeing her from the Seventh Hunger.
“Why can’t she sense us?” I ask, shifting a little to get a clearer view through the window.
Winter whispers. “Something about this place, about her eating. She goes into a kind of food coma I guess. She’s completely unaware of what’s going on while she’s feeding. I followed her a little while ago and found this place, found her feeding like this. It’s like she’s blind and deaf while she’s eating.”
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Author Biography:
Morgan Quaid is an Australian writer of speculative fiction, fantasy, and horror, specializing in fast-paced page turners set against expansive fantasy backdrops. When Morgan isn’t writing novels, comics, graphic novels, or short stories, he’s usually composing or producing music, or staring with longing and regret at a bar of chocolate.
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