MudMan (The Golem Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind. ”
    A wyrm of the Great below. One of the elder gods of the Deep, then, though Levi didn’t know which.
    Placed methodically before the altar were bodies, corpses. Once human, but now altered , changedin terrible ways.
    Here: what had once been a man, was now a creature with ropy, purple tentacles where arms belonged and the head of a great direwolf affixed to his shoulders. Another: a woman, breasts hacked away, a flamingo’s dainty legs protruding from her belly, growing out of her abdomen like a tree. A third: A halfie boy with leopard-spotted skin—fifteen, perhaps—with his legs ripped off and replaced with a set of mechanical limbs. And those were only a few of the victims. Twenty or more, equally brutalized and desecrated, dotted the ground in front of the blasphemous statue.
    The vile scene tickled at the back of Levi’s mind, familiar somehow, as though he’d seen this gruesome tableau before. He pushed away the curious sense of déjà vu, instead letting murderous rage fill him up. He had work to be about.
    Monsters, he thought, the whole lot of them. Guilty.
    He just needed to get inside.
    Levi inched forward, running his hands over the thick metal, inspecting it for flaws or areas of vulnerability. Though the Kobocks were a crude breed of creature, this gate, at least, had been painstakingly constructed and maintained. Well-crafted metal, free from rust and reinforced with powerful magical wards to prevent tampering. He bent down, wedged his hands into the latticework gate, and stood, back flexing, thighs bulging, biceps shaking from strain as he tried to force the gate.
    The iron groaned and shifted an inch or two, but no more—
    A spasm of movement near the altar caught his eye. A girl, pasty white, with limp cotton-candy pink hair, streaked through with splashes of purple, lay on an elaborately carved stone table, her body cinched down with leather straps. Her clothes, what remained of them, were dirty tatters at best, and revealed long arms and shapely legs liberally covered with colorful tattoos.
    He’d taken her for dead. An easy mistake to make, given both her appearance and the company she kept. Her eyes were closed, and a savage slice ran the length of her middle. Her skin was corpse pale, too—especially in the dancing firelight. On closer examination, Levi saw her chest rise and fall. A minuscule movement.
    Levi’s eyes flitted to the stainless steel gurney next to the girl; a wide array of medical implements covered its surface: bone saw, surgical scalpel, pliers, bloody gauze, a cloudy brown bottle of alcohol, a needle, and rough catgut sutures.
    His gaze flickered back and forth between the desecrated bodies lying in front of the strange altar and the woman on the table with the slash running up her abdomen. Experimentation. Like back in the camps.
    Animals . Rabid animals .
    The only thing rabid animals were good for was extermination. A mercy, really.
    Then, before Levi could stop it, the memory came—floating to the surface, unbidden. Unwanted . It was a rude and demanding guest, but one Levi couldn’t ask to leave. The memory wasn’t Levi’s, not exactly, and though he didn’t want it, neither could he refuse it. It was as much a part of him as his hands or legs or eyes, and he was forbidden to forget. His purpose was not only to slay the wicked, but to stand and remember:
    The dusty floorboards creak beneath my knees. Solemn faces—all gaunt and stained—peer down with sunken eyes from the rickety wooden beds lining either side of the narrow aisle.
    They do nothing, only watch, then look away. But what can they do? What can anyone do?
    The guard stands behind me—a young man, a few years older than Nicholas—wearing a smart gray uniform, which is pressed and clean. Immaculate, even, which only serves to highlight the filth clinging to everything else