The Graves of Saints
Read The Graves of Saints Online
Authors: Christopher Golden
Praise for THE SHADOW SAGA
‘Reading
Of Saints and Shadows
again, I was amazed how many elements now familiar in the vampire and thriller genres appeared in
Saints
first.
Golden’s imagination and expert plotting wove these elements into a startlingly original book, as exciting to read now as it was when it first appeared on the rack’
Charlaine Harris
‘Christopher Golden has reinvented the vampire myth into non-stop action, suspense, and fascinating dark fantasy. [He’s] an imaginative and prodigious talent who
never lets genre conventions hold him back’
Douglas Clegg, author of the
Vampirycon
series
‘Filled with tension, breathtaking action . . . and a convincing depiction of worlds existing unseen within our own’
Science Fiction Chronicle
‘Harrowing, humorous, overflowing with character and plot contortions, abundantly entertaining . . . a portent of great things to come’
Douglas E. Winter,
Cemetery Dance
‘Golden combines quiet, dark, subtle mood with Super-Giant monster action. Sort of M. R. James meets Godzilla!’
Mike Mignola, creator of
Hellboy
‘A breathtaking story that succeeds in marrying gore and romance, sex and sentiment. A brilliant epic’
Dark News
(Paris)
‘The most refreshing books in the vampire genre since Anne Rice wrote
Interview with a Vampire
, [Golden’s novels] are completely in a class by
themselves’
Pathway to Darkness
‘Passionate . . . excellent . . . and a surprise explanation for vampires. Brilliant’
LitNews Online
‘Wildly entertaining . . . like mixing Laurell K. Hamilton with the dark ambivalence of an H. P. Lovecraft story. The pacing is always pedal-to-the-floor, the main
characters are larger than life and the demons and other assorted monstrosities give Lovecraft’s
Cthulu
mythos a run for their money’
Barnes & Noble Online
The Shadow Saga
Of Saints and Shadows
Angel Souls and Devil Hearts
Of Masques and Martyrs
The Gathering Dark
Waking Nightmares
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the award-winning,
New York Times
bestselling author of such novels as
Of Saints and Shadows, The Myth Hunters, The Boys Are Back in
Town,
and
Strangewood
. He has also written books for teens and young adults, including
Soulless, Poison Ink,
and the
Body of Evidence
series of teen thrillers. His
current work-in-progress is a graphic novel trilogy collaboration with Charlaine Harris.
A lifelong fan of the ‘team-up,’ Golden frequently collaborates with other writers on books, comics, and scripts. He has co-written three illustrated novels with Mike Mignola, the
first of which,
Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire
, was the launching pad for the Eisner Award-nominated comic book series,
Baltimore
. With Amber Benson, he
co-created and co-wrote the BBC online animated series
Ghosts of Albion
.
As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies
The New Dead, The Monster’s Corner,
and
21st Century Dead
, among others, and has also written and co-written
comic books, video games, screenplays, and a network television pilot. The author is also known for his many media tie-in works, including novels, comics, and video games, in the worlds of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hellboy
, and
X-Men
, among others.
Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His original novels have been published in more than fourteen languages in countries around the world. Please
visit him at www.christophergolden.com
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2013
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Christopher Golden 2013
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The right of Christopher Golden to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
1st Floor
222 Gray’s Inn Road
London WC1X 8HB
Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney
Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-85720-963-4
Ebook: 978-0-85720-965-8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual people living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound by CPI Group UK (Ltd), Croydon CR0 4YY
IN MEMORY OF DR GEORGE J. MARCOPOULOS
Gentleman, teacher, scholar, and friend
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Much gratitude and appreciation to my editors, Maxine Hitchcock and Sally Partington, and my agents, Howard Morhaim and Caspian Dennis, for all of their work on my behalf.
Thanks also to all of the folks at S&S UK, in particular the art department for the sweet covers. As always, love and thanks to my wife, Connie, and our children, Nicholas, Daniel, and Lily, as
well as to the friends and family who keep me sane. You know who you are. Finally, an extra special thanks to Nancy Danos for her keen eye and input. After all this time she knows these books
better than I do.
September 21
Brattleboro, Vermont
The witches gathered in a circle, as sleek and somber as a conspiracy of ravens. Outside that ring was another, made up of friends and employees of Summerfields Orchard, but
they kept their distance and observed a respectful silence, all of them watching the witches. Peter Octavian stood perhaps furthest of all from the circle, practically at the edge of the hillside
clearing, at the center of which stood a single apple tree, remarkable for the leaves and fruit which blossomed from the branches as if summer were still in full swing instead of coming quickly to
a close.
The witches began a ceremonial chant that seemed half incantation and half prayer, and Octavian studied them closely. They had come from all over New England to participate in a joyous occasion
– the autumnal equinox – and the various rituals that went along with it for people of their beliefs. Those rituals were still to come but today they were attending to a different sort
of ceremony: the funeral of one of their own.
Several of the witches wore robes, preferring perhaps to keep to the old traditions, but most were dressed in ordinary clothing, snug in sweaters and wool coats. When the breeze shifted just
right, the wind carried the scent of cinnamon and cider up the hill from the shop in the barn, where bakers were making donuts for visitors. But no visitors were being allowed up onto the hillside
this morning. Not just yet.
The chanting witches held their hands out in front of them, fingers stretched toward the soil. The stance gave them a stiff, formal pose, and Octavian was reminded again of black birds. Once
upon a time, a cluster of ravens had been called an
unkindness
, and the word felt appropriate. Though the witches had convened this gray morning for only the most generous and blessed of
purposes, it was fate’s unkindness that they should have to be here at all.
No rain fell, but clouds hung low above the orchard, dark and pregnant with storm. Octavian would have preferred it if the rain and wind had come already, nourishing and cleansing this small
valley on the outskirts of Brattleboro, Vermont, and sweeping away the ominous aura that filled the air with the threat of menace. Keomany Shaw had died to keep chaos and entropy from enveloping
the world. The battle had been won, the casualties counted, and order restored. So why did it feel like the storm had yet to break? It was more than the clouds, Octavian knew that. As much as he
grieved for Keomany, his skin prickled with the certainty that there was worse yet to come.
The earthwitches raised their hands to the sky as if to part the clouds, but the heavens were indifferent. Together the women intoned a new prayer, commending the spirit of their sister to the
earth and the sky. There were seventeen of them in the circle, including Cat Hein and Tori Osborne, the married couple who owned Summerfields, and who had been Keomany’s closest friends. The
others had arrived in a steady trickle over the past couple of days, in preparation for the equinox ceremonies that the earthwitches would be hosting at the orchard.
‘Never saw this coming,’ the man standing beside Octavian said in a low voice.
Octavian studied the thin, sixtyish man with the round glasses and the wispy white beard, trying to recall his name.
Patrick
. Tori had introduced him as the husband of one of the
earthwitches, which Octavian had thought interesting. A couple of the others had arrived with companions who were not witches, but for the most part they had come alone or in the company of other
witches. Either they were single, or they’d left their non-witch partners at home.
‘You knew Keomany?’ Octavian asked quietly, glancing at the circle of witches to be sure the whispered exchange would not disturb them. There were perhaps twenty other people outside
the ritual circle, and they were all observing in silence.
Patrick smiled sadly. ‘We all knew her and loved her. If any of us ever needed proof that Gaea loved us, that the earth mother was still with us, all we had to do was look at Keomany.
She’d been chosen, you know? It just radiated from her.’
If he hadn’t known better, Octavian would have scoffed at the suggestion that the ancient sentience of the earth itself paid any attention to the human world, or that it had touched
Keomany Shaw, given her elemental gifts not bestowed upon others. But he had seen those gifts himself, and he knew the bond that Keomany had forged with the elements. With the earth.
‘No doubt about it,’ Octavian said, and this seemed to satisfy Patrick, who nodded and said no more.
In the midst of the witches, Cat stepped forward. Tall and curvy, she reminded Octavian of the Rubenesque representations of fertility goddesses in classical art, though her stylish burgundy
sweater and black jeans belied the comparison. Cat’s face was lined with tears as she reached for the wine bottle in Tori’s hands – the wine bottle Octavian had brought back from
Massachusetts with him. The wine bottle that contained all that he had managed to collect of Keomany’s ashes.
As if she could sense his attention – and perhaps she could – she shot Octavian a withering glance. Though he had once saved her from a very painful death, she had no affection for
him. Now, in the wake of Keomany’s death, dislike had turned to venom.
Tori handed the wine to her wife, bringing Cat back into the moment. She accepted the bottle and the couple shared a lingering look of sadness. Tori wiped away her own tears and then pressed
both hands to her chest as though to quiet her thundering heart. Cat gave Tori a small, sorrowful smile and uncorked the bottle.
Octavian had been surprised when the witches had told him they were going to scatter Keomany’s ashes this morning. He had assumed that with the equinox so close, and given the renewal it
represented, they would want to wait until then to perform this ceremony. But Keomany had purified the soil in this clearing and had planted the seed of this lone, remarkable apple tree herself,
using her earth magic to grow it from seedling to maturity in a matter of minutes. They wanted Keomany to be a part of this soil before the equinox so that she could be purified with it, and grow
and have her spirit renewed, joined with Gaea forever.