The Bloody Painter Novels & Stories

’ The inspector relayed some information to a police officer and followed Rishabh to his room. The room was presidential. Dark panels, teakwood furniture, glass mural paintings adorned the walls and beautiful glass sculptures were placed on wooden stands at each corner of the room. The brothers occupied seats around a small table which had a variety of business magazines and newspapers on it. The inspector walked towards the glass window and pushed it open. It was dark outside. Adjacent to the window, was a table on which sat a desktop computer. Leaning against it, he reached into his pocket for a packet of cigarettes. He blinked nervously trying to frame a question. What do you say to two y

She shivered as he called her what he always used to call her. “I am not going to kill you, but you see, I can kill for you. And I won’t stop, until you come home with me. So,” He wiped his face and his hands were bloodied now, his face resembled a devil’s face. He rubbed the blood in his hands and wiped them off on hers. She tried to retract her hands, but he held them tightly, painting them red. He was acting like a sadist, a maniac and her eyes were shedding so many tears she had no idea she owned this many. “If you don’t want me to paint your entire body with blood, let’s go home.”

If you looked closely, you could see the faint outlines of the mansion’s floor plan woven into the briars. Blood: A violent, crimson abstract that captured the night of the gala and the biological war of the Trust. It was thick, textured, and moved like a living thing under the gallery lights. Sky: An open-concept masterpiece of blues, golds, and whites. It was the New Sanctuary. It was the moment Ethan called Zander “Dad.” It was the feeling of oxygen finally reaching lungs that had been drowning for years. “It’s haunting,” a critic whispered, not realizing I was standing behind him. “It’s as if she didn’t just paint it—she bled it.”

A low raspy laugh filled my ears adding horrific images to my paranoia. I quieted it was no use fighting the unknown. I had no choice but to hold on to Yulian’s promise; I would be okay. My breathing hitched, dampness brushed through my breast. The strong smell of paint covered my nostrils. Strokes were meticulously laid and I became a canvass of an obscure art. “She’s all done,” announced a man, I presumed the painter. He rounded me once more before patting my behind. “Yeah, she’s all good. What marvelous skin you have! A living porcelain doll!”

"The pull that could create." Nikolai was quiet for a moment. "Yes," he said. "I am." "What specifically," I said. "Break it down." "That it gives him something we cannot," Nikolai said. "A history that is not soaked in everything this world carries. A person who knew his mother. A person who has no blood on his hands connected to his family. A clean thread backward." "Our hands have blood connected to his family," I said. "Yes," Nikolai said. "That is exactly what I mean. It creates a contrast that matters."

I grabbed the huge canvas and my paints without bothering to tie my hair up. Colors collided on the canvas, raw and wild. Rage mixed with sorrow, bleeding into every stroke—red for the fury in the background, black for the emptiness, lines in the red, white for the hollow ache blending with the blue, brown for the weight of it all. But...Blue surged, sharp and piercing, until his image actually emerged. Not the man himself, but his eyes. Those cruel, calculating blue eyes that knew exactly how to lie. The image spoke...as if it was actually him on the other side—laughing at me, cruelly.

“Blood, Word, Breath. Break any and the stair erases your ascent.” Taren swallowed. “What happens if the stair erases us?” “You forget up,” the figure said, almost kindly. “Some prefer that.” They descended. ⸻ The chamber of Blood was small, round, plain. A bowl cut into the floor collected melt from the ceiling in slow, patient drops. A wafer of ice rested on a plinth beside it. Three channels had been carved there: two whole, one shallow. Kaelira’s wolf paced. Teeth and ritual, Ardyn said, unimpressed. Pick one.

I followed Reaper's gaze. Idling at the very edge of the jungle treeline, acting as a heavily armed escort for the weary scavengers behind them, was a pack of about fifty outlaw bikers. They didn't ride sleek hover-tech. They rode massive, ear-splitting combustion choppers, rusted and spiked for wasteland warfare. Even from the top of the wall, I could see the patches on their heavy leather cuts. They bore a single, jagged word stitched in crimson: Revers. At the head of the column sat their leader on a monstrous, elongated chopper. Across his rusted gas tank, a brutal, unforgiving motto had been spray-painted in thick white letters: Blood on the asphalt.

As the music kicked back in, the room buzzed with life once more. He turned to me, his gaze softening. "Is your hand still hurting?" I shook my head. Looking up, I caught the gentle warmth in his eyes. Three months later. The studio was filled with the scent of turpentine. My left hand gripped a paintbrush, sweeping vibrant hues across the canvas. Though my right hand was out of commission, it had regained enough strength to hold the easel steady. Bradley entered, a takeout box in hand. "Lunchtime."

Four large paintings hung on the main wall, each one lit perfectly so it seemed to breathe on its own. Her eyes moved across them slowly… and then she saw something that caught her attention immediately. Paintings. And one of the paintings was hers. It was a piece she had finished months ago — a woman standing by a window, half in shadow, half in light. The brushwork showed all the quiet pain and hope she had felt when she painted it. Seeing it here, among the other strong works, made her chest tighten. “Quentin…” she whispered. He stood close behind her, tall and steady. “They selected four paintings this year. Yours was one of them.”