Blood Brushstrokes a noir story by Thanos Kalamidas Blood Brush- strokes Thanos Kalamidas Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Blood Brushstrokes Blood Brushstrokes Thanos kalamidas Thanos Kalamidas An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Blood Brushstrokes T he rain came down like a jealous lover, sharp and persistent, draping the city in a greasy sheen that made the neon signs bleed into the puddles like open wounds. I was two fingers into a warm bottle of Old Overholt and three weeks behind on rent when the knock came on my office door. Knock knock knock. I let it go. Real clients don’t knock like that, rhyth- mically, like they practiced it. Probably another actor rehearsing a line or some bastard trying to sell reli- gion. Knock knock knock. Again. Thanos Kalamidas “All right, I get it, you got a hand and you know how to use it,” I said. “Door’s open.” She stepped in like a storm wrapped in red silk, long legs, dark eyes, and a perfume that made my mouth taste like smoke and regret. She didn’t sit. Just stood there and dropped a photo on my desk. The face in the photo was familiar, a little too famil- iar. Vincent Ray. Painter. Genius. Maniac. A guy who once painted a mural on the side of a condemned hospital just to prove death could be beautiful. “He’s missing,” she said. I lit a cigarette. “Lucky guy.” “I’m his sister.” “Bad luck’s genetic.” She didn’t smile. “He sent me a letter. It had... strange instructions. Mentioned your name.” “Guy must really be in trouble.” I took the photo, and she left. Just like that. Left me with the bottle, the photo, and a headache that wasn’t from the rye. Blood Brushstrokes * * * * * * * Ray and I had history. Not the good kind. Not the kind you drink to. More like the kind you bury in a shoebox with a .38 and a burner phone. He once asked me to track down a guy who stole his painting. The guy turned up dead. So did his dog. Ray didn’t flinch. He painted it. Last I heard, he’d gotten into some “forbidden techniques.” Real occult brushwork. Paints mixed with ashes, canvases treated in animal blood. Said it brought the art “closer to God.” I figured it brought it closer to the morgue. I started the trail at a place called The Split Gal- lery, a warehouse turned art temple for rich perverts and ego-starved collectors. I had to flash the photo at the doorman like a badge. He nodded like he under- stood. He didn’t. Inside, a crowd swirled around a painting like moths around a crucifix. The canvas was massive, a portrait of a man screaming while he disintegrated into ash. Something about it felt wrong, like it was watching me. Thanos Kalamidas A man in a velvet suit leaned in close. “That’s one of Ray’s last pieces.” “You know him?” “Knew him. We all knew him. Until he vanished. Rumor is, he painted something he shouldn’t have.” “Like what? A still life of Satan’s basement?” He chuckled. “Something about death. The real one. Said he could paint the soul escaping. Said he could trap it.” That’s when the lights went out. Screams. A crash. The smell of paint thinner and panic. When the lights came back on, Velvet Suit was facedown in his caviar, and someone had slashed the painting. A single line right down the center, precise, cruel, surgical. * * * * * * * The bodies started piling up faster than an artist’s unpaid bar tabs. Every name Ray had mentioned in old letters or interviews, dead. Some drowned in tur- Blood Brushstrokes pentine, some burned with their own canvas rolls, one even crucified with his own brushes. Whoever was doing this had a flair for the dramat- ic or a vendetta with gallery lighting. Me? I followed the trail. Through dive bars where painters traded souls for inspiration. Through moldy basements where failed art students turned their madness into installation pieces nobody would ever see. I found the next clue in a motel off Biscayne, a painting shoved behind a busted headboard. Ray had painted himself, half-finished, staring straight ahead with eyes full of fear. He’d left a date in the corner. June 13th. That was today. * * * * * * * I found him in an abandoned church in Hiale- ah. He was thinner than I remembered. Eyes wide. Hands twitching. “You shouldn’t have come,” he said. Thanos Kalamidas “That’s what everyone says. Right before I end up in handcuffs or a casket.” He laughed, dry, hollow. “I painted it, you know.” “What?” “Death. I caught it. I saw it. And now it’s following me. That painting, the one they cut at the gallery — it was a prison. I trapped death in it.” He pointed to a canvas leaned against the altar. “Bullshit,” I said. He pulled the cover. And I’ll be damned. There was something in it. Not a face. Not a shape. Just a... pull . Like the gravity of a black hole that spoke in whispers. “I thought I could hold it,” Ray said. “But it’s leak- ing out. It wants out. It wants me .” I lit a cigarette with a hand that didn’t want to stop shaking. Blood Brushstrokes “You know what happens next,” I said. He nodded. “I finish the painting. And you burn it. Burn me with it.” “No one’s ever hired me to kill a painting before.” “You’ve always had good taste in trouble.” I stood there, watching him work. Each stroke looked like it hurt. Like the canvas was eating him alive. And when it was done, he turned to me. A smile on his face. Calm. Like he’d made peace with the thing staring back from the canvas. I lit the fire with my last match. * * * * * * * The flames took the church fast. Firefighters found the place the next day, but there was no body. Just ash and melted brushes. I told the sister he was gone. She cried. Then laughed. Then asked me if he finished the painting. I didn’t answer. Thanos Kalamidas Because sometimes the truth’s like turpentine, it strips everything down to the bones. And some bones are better left buried in paint. Fin. Blood Brushstrokes Blood Brushstrokes Thanos Kalamidas Ovi eBook Publishing 2025 Ovi magazine Design: Thanos Ovi ebooks are available in Ovi/Ovi eBookshelves pages and they are for free. If somebody tries to sell you an Ovi book please contact us immediately. For details, contact: ovimagazine@yahoo.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the writer or the above publisher of this book An Ovi eBooks Publication 2025 Ovi eBookPublications - All material is copyright of the Ovi eBooks Publications & the writer C Thanos Kalamidas a noir story by Thanos Kalamidas Blood Brush- strokes Thanos Kalamidas , a multipublished writer, cartoonist and illustrator; born and grew up in a picturesque neighbourhood on the moun- tainside of Hymettus in Athens, Greece. Then his life took him to Berlin, Germany and to London, UK for studies. After a brief stay in Yorkshire he moved his life to Paris, France while working in Tokyo, Japan and in Cape Town, South Africa. In the last 25 years he became a permanent Scandinavian resident and recently, in his glorious sixth de- cade, he moved to a scenic village in the Växjö area.