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Completely destroyed.

Inka was dead.

Yes, I still had my amazing son, who grew into an oh-so-wonderful man who totally hates the sight of me now. The last time I saw Mihal, he wouldn’t even look my way, so I told him to get the hell out of London or I would kill him.

Mihal envies me. He loathed me when I first refused him immortality and has hated me ever since.

When my body started heaving again, I did not fight, and I don’t know if not fighting made my death worse or easier.

Vomit ran down my face, but it didn’t matter.

Death is horrible; there is nothing wonderful about dying. I could distinguish Kait screaming for Pari and Emil, and I shut him out.

Tobais retched, and I just couldn’t be bothered. Mera screamed that Pal was dead, and I could not even drum up sympathy.

“Nasty little bastard,” I hear you say. Yes, these were my friends and I’m sure they all experienced the same as me. Nothing mattered anymore.

Pain shot up my back, such agony I had never known. Cramps abounded in my stomach, and although empty, I still retched. Pain like heartburn shot through me, and there was an acidic taste in my mouth, and then, just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.

For all those mothers reading this, do you remember your labour pain?

Yes?This was undeniably far more painful. It felt as if someone was pulling all the nerve endings out of my body and setting a match to them.

I screamed and yelled, and nothing happened. My body moved of its own violation, twisting and turning, and this time, there was no getting free. I yearned for death to take me, yet this continued endlessly.

How had my beautiful Inka withstood this?

I experienced a rising of rage, but my anger was inconsequential. I was going to die, and nothing could stop it. The blood rushed to my head as it emptied out of my ears and eyes like Inka’s had.

It pumped out of my mouth, and yet the agony carried on. Not lessening and unrelenting. I had screamed myself hoarse and only managing to lie there whimpering in pain.

Then I died.

Chapter Three.

And I died. That’s simplistic, isn’t it?

Just a bald statement of death. My body decided it had enough, and kapoosh, it shut down and refused to work anymore. Of course, I can’t blame it for doing so, we were rather wracked in agony. But yup, I kicked the bucket.

No angels, no fanfare, no trumpets and definitely no bright lights or tunnels. My life didn’t flash before my eyes, and there were no regrets. Hell, I remember screaming in the most horrendous pain and bawling like a baby. I even shit myself. That is the brutal truth of my death.

All I pictured was Mihal laughing, and I dimly wondered who would look after him now, and that was it. There was nothing except eternal blackness. I wasn’t aware of myself or anyone else. Nobody waited for me either. The afterlife apparently sucked.

Sadly, I quite obviously didn’t live a good life. Don’t forget, Kaltons did believe in life after death. Surely, I hadn’t been so evil that the afterlife had been denied to me?

Honestly, I saw nothing.

Do I still believe in life after death?Of course.

There are several reasons, which we will eventually arrive at. There are other versions of Heaven that I have witnessed, and humans have their own belief in paradise. But for me, the Kalton’s life after death didn’t happen.

The bothersome problem was, where was my idea of Heaven? My different plane of existence? There should have been something. Not just this… nothing, is the best word to describe it. No, Siree, I had no afterlife experience whatsoever.

Although I make a light-hearted remark that I hadn’t been good enough in my life, the Kalton religion wasn’t based on that.

Kaltons died and crossed over. It didn’t matter whether you had been good or bad.

Over thousands of years, I’ve read about different religions and even embraced some, the latest being the Church of England.Who’s taking bets on how loud the Church scream at the idea of a Vam’pir amongst them?Surefire guarantee there’s someone in the holy community who will be offended by my presence.