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HE WAS BORN A MIRACLE. IT WILL TAKE ONE TO SAVE THE WORLD.

Velvet Rain is a dark thriller of suspense, horror, and drama.
[Contains graphic violence and profanity.]

Amazon

Kain Richards is the last of his kind--and a man on the run. So when this mysterious drifter falls for a

beautiful and sensible Iowa farmwoman, he knows full well the perils of getting too close. And yet, for the first time in his miserable existence, life feels normal ... feels real. But as those around him soon realize, reality is not what it seems. For when a tragic accident forces Kain's hand, his astonishing secret--and godlike power--changes their lives, and the world, forever.

Excerpt

Now the cheating prick had drawn a knife.

Probably shouldn’t have kicked him in the balls, the drifter thought. Especially since his large friend here had him tied up in the stranglehold of a full nelson. It hurt like hell, but it was nothing compared to that spike of static driving right through that splitting headache he had. It felt as if it were cutting into his brain like some impossible electric blade.

“Hold him, Cal.”

It wasn’t the fat man. One of Cal’s buddies had piped up. All of a sudden, the place was just crawling with rats.

The fat man met him squarely, still wincing from the throb in his jewels. The heady mix of bar smoke and brew had him swaying a little, and just when you thought he might rethink this madness, he returned the favor with one solid shot from his steel-toed boot. Pain rippled through the drifter’s groin and into his skull. Still, he’d endured far worse than these boys could dish out, and he wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction. He swallowed the agony. His lips slid into a cockeyed grin.

Outside the packed roadhouse—this stinking pisshole that stank like all the others—the thunderstorm raged. Somewhere down that cold and lonely road that had brought them here, lightning struck a power line, and the lights flickered.

“No more tricks,” the trucker told him, uncertain as the lamps. Clearly he was rethinking this; trying to get a grip on just what the hell had happened here tonight. Trying not to lose that grip.

An attractive redhead, sculpted nicely in a white top and a flirty black skirt, sat in a booth beside the coin-op pool table. All by her lonesome, the forty-something was ashen, her head down, a hand cupped to her abdomen. She’d been drinking heavily, and while it was possible her bouts of nausea were a result of overindulgence, the drifter knew better; how well he did. She’d fought the good fight twice in the last thirty minutes, first throwing up in the ladies’ room, only to go down in the second round, right here at the edge of her seat. A waitress was on her knees cleaning the mess. The fat man had slipped in it, his cue almost, but not quite, breaking his fall, and when he had hit the floor in that little spiral the way he had, looking like some overweight stripper round a pole, half the place had exploded in drunken laughter. His big butt was slick with vomit. He was ripe.

Sweat beaded the man’s forehead. One tiny bead broke rank and slipped along his sunburned skin. Skin that had, until tonight, been utterly pasty. His puzzled eyes—yellowed and bloodshot, like so many of the others now—lingered on the strange thin scars on the drifter’s temples. You could almost hear the wheels of confusion spinning in his head.

“Cut him,” someone said. It wasn’t Cal, but what did it matter.

The fat man hesitated. He didn’t want to do it, that much was clear. Some guys had it in them. This one didn’t. Returning serve on that swift kick to the nuts was one thing. Any one of these fine gents would have reacted that way. But this? This was lunacy. If Cal hadn’t egged him to pull it, the knife would still be tucked away in his back pocket. No, the poor bastard wasn’t thinking about cutting him. He was all messed up, wondering how things had gotten so crazy, so quickly. Wondering what was real anymore. What was real.

“Do it,” Cal said.

Despite the nelson driving his head down at an insufferable angle, the drifter could see Cal’s bulging forearms plainly enough. Sunburned. Like the fat man’s face; like the fat man’s hands. Like most of the others. He supposed he should have been thankful for dim lights and drink. Either no one noticed, or no one cared.

Still, he should have known better. The bitch of it was, he did.

The fat man looked to Cal and considered his play. Cal, a man of few grunts, drove him to the edge with another Do it. It would take but a nudge to push him over.

The man drew closer. Close enough to suffer the fist of his stale beer-breath. He was breathing laboriously. Trembling. He looked like he might have a heart attack.

Slowly, most unwillingly, he brought the tip of the blade to the drifter’s chin.

The fat man swallowed. “. . . I want what’s mine, sir.”

Author Bio

David C. Cassidy--author, photographer, half-decent juggler--spends his writing life creating dark and touching stories where Bad Things Happen To Good People. Raised by wolves, he grew up with a love of nature, music, science, and history, with thrillers and horror novels feeding the dark side of his seriously disturbed imagination. He talks to his characters, talks often, and most times they listen. But the real fun starts when they tell him to take a hike, and they Open That Door anyway. Idiots.

David lives in Ontario, Canada. From Mozart to Vivaldi, classic jazz to classic rock, he feels naked without his iPod. Suffering from MAD--Multiple Activity Disorder--he divides his time between writing and blogging, photography and photoshop, reading and rollerblading. An avid amateur astronomer, he loves the night sky, chasing the stars with his telescope. Sometimes he eats.

To learn more and connect with David, you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook, or visit his blog:

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