“I can take him.” Ava retrieved the knife and flipped. It sliced through the air, spinning, until it landed hilt first back in her palm.
“Cables and electricity are what we need. Do as you’re told.”
Ava glared at us, but the boys sprang into action. Reluctantly, Ava followed.
Electricity and cables. The notion tripped something in my memory.
When Cash trained me in how to hunt a witch, he’d pulled a feral witch out from the back of his car with a metal collar around her neck. The collar was attached to a car battery. The small electric current prevented her soul from leaving the host, thus trapping her inside, making her easier to kill. Petra would use the same technique on Marc.
“I found something,” Val said, walking up with a lasso of cables in his hands.
“That will do. Set it up and stand to the side of the door.”
“And what am I supposed to do?”
My head swiveled toward Ava. “You think you’re good enough to fight a god? Then be the backup.”
An evil grin broke out on her face, turning the otherwise pretty features into something twisted and ugly. “And my ability? Can I use it?”
Her ability? I’d never seen it. Not at the trials, never. Whatever it was, she was busting to let it out.
“Only if we can’t secure him via the current. The General said you haven’t revealed your ability to the world yet. If you do it, your edge will be gone.”
“Spoil sport.” Ava pouted. She kicked a stray collection of cables to the side and moved to stand near the service counter, one blade tucked into the belt of her leather jeans, another in her hand.
“Are you ready?”
Ava nodded. Rus nodded and held up his cable, frayed copper exposed at the end. His brother did the same from the opposite side of the doorframe. Lincoln, poor Lincoln, did nothing from the far corner of the room.
Petra moved my body to stand in front of the open door, so we looked out into the laneway beyond.
“Egnatius,” she said. “Egnatius, I need you.”
Ava snorted from behind us. “That’s his true name?”
“Shh.” Val gave her daggers.
“Just saying, no wonder he went by Marc.”
“For fuck’s sake, Ava, shut-up.” Rus flexed the cable in his hand, hopping from side to side, agitated.
We waited in silence for a beat, watching the bright landscape outside from the shadows within.
Marc didn’t show.
But someone else did.
A black shadow blocked out the light in the doorway, casting the room into stormy darkness. The silhouette’s head cocked to the side. Our eyes took a moment to adjust from the change in brightness. The image in front of me came into clear focus.
Cash stood in the doorway to the café, checking the screen of a digital smart-tablet, as though he followed a tracking program. Perhaps it was the nanobots injected at registration—they’d be in all of us.
No! I screamed from my confines.
Whether he heard me, I didn’t know, but the moment his foot crossed the threshold, he dropped to one knee. He swung his tablet to the right, smashing it into Val’s gut. A follow-up left hook to the face sent Val soaring.
Cash spun to pop Rus twice in the nose and once in the throat. Rus crumpled to the ground.
Cash glared at me and stepped closer, never taking his eyes from mine.
No, I cried again. What about Ava?
Two-seconds later, the air behind Cash warped and Ava stepped out of nothing.
She teleported?
Ava’s fists torpedoed Cash in the lower back. When he swung to face her, she disappeared again, swallowed by air. Cash charged the empty spot and grasped nothing. He jerked to the side, grunted, as if hit by a force.
Ava hadn’t teleported; she became invisible.
He roared in frustration as his body propelled against the counter.
This was not good. If he couldn’t see, how could he fight?
A red ribbon sliced Cash’s shoulder with a cut. He winced and made to fight back, but reined in at the last moment. He glanced at me and then closed his eyes.
Look out! I pounded against my prison. What was he doing?
His chest rose and fell as he calmed and centered himself. His head cocked to the right, listening with his super senses, and then whipped to the left, following something unseen. He lashed out and caught something, but then lost it. Ava’s body blurred in and out of focus, a chameleon. He almost had her.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Cash crooned. He kept his eyes closed and stalked around the room, his body moving with grace and coiled power.
A glint near the kitchen.
Cash ducked to miss the knife sail over his head and embed in the wall behind him. A slither of hair floated to the floor. My heart leapt into my throat, but his concentration didn’t waver.
Petra leaned my body against a metal table. She was in no rush to assist Ava, and that worried me.
Cash paused and waited, lethal and ready to pounce.
Seconds later, he grabbed the air in to the side of him. Ava came into full view with his hand around her neck, squeezing, gasping, red in the face.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t end your game right now,” he growled.
Petra moved my body then. I thought she would attempt to rescue Ava, but she didn’t. She used the distraction to get to the fallen Epsilon boys. First, Val, with his shaved head. A syringe manifested in my hand. She must have had it hidden in our clothes. The black-filled needle disappeared into Val’s forearm, and then Rus’s. Movement rippled beneath the surface of their skin as though fish swam underneath.
Val tensed and contorted. He slapped a palm to his eye and twitched and groaned.
Rus seized and moaned, tugging his hair with both hands. “Get it out.”
Petra said something to them. Both sets of eyes were dark, black liquid, and confused. Petra spoke again until they focused on us, listening. Then they picked up their electrical cables and straightened with purpose.
Val exposed his new sharp teeth in a snarl. His eyes weren’t human anymore.
Cash’s gaze whipped to the boys. He shoved Ava, and she collapsed, gasping, hand fluttering to her throat.
“I smell witch,” Cash said, eyes wide, a crease etched between his brow.
Petra laughed. “Close. Try again.”
In slow motion, I watched Ava get to her feet, eyes trained on Cash. He didn’t see her hands wrap around a length of cable. He missed her snapping the length, testing it. She looped the cable over his head and yanked it across his neck.
Cash.
His thumbs came up between the cable and his skin, but it was no use. Ava pulled with all her might, determined to choke and strangle him.
My body walked toward him as Ava pulled him away. His legs struggled to retain a footing. His face reddened and his veins popped as he tried to breathe. Ava held him steady against her, open to me. I almost died when my hands, powerful and laden with energy, struck Cash’s jaw. His head whipped back at the neck, yet his eyes never left mine. In them, a collision of emotions—betrayal, desperation, anguish—all directed at me.
“Hunter of witches.” Petra backhanded him. “Who’s hunting who now?”
Cash stopped struggling and spit blood to the side, thumbs still caught between the cable and his neck. If Petra expected a response, he didn’t give it to her.
So she punched him in the stomach. A hollow grunt came out of him with the wind. She did it again.
My hands.
Hurting him.
“How does it feel, hunter?”
He glared daggers at me.
A cackle came from my mouth. “You’ll always wonder, won’t you? No matter what happens next, you’ll never be certain. How much of our time together was her, how much of it was me.”
Cash’s eyes widened as the horror hit him.
Stop it.
“Every time you kissed her, touc
hed her, bedded her. Was it really her… or was it me?”
No.
She laughed again. This time, Ava joined in. The new monsters behind me snarled.
“You’ll never be able to stand her company again.”
You stupid cow! I screamed. Bitch! It was me. It was always me.
“You’re deluding yourself if you think you can connive your place into our world.” Cash’s raspy voice was almost too quiet to hear. “You’ll never be Seraphim. Even if you get there, they’ll see you for what you are, a cheap carbon copy.”
“Shut up!” I watched as Petra struck him again. Blood dripped from split skin over his puffy eye.
“Sore spot, Petra?”
She hit him again: In the stomach, in the chest, in the face. Pound after pound of fist into his body.
A noise at the door broke our focus.
“Alright, alright, Little Red. I know what you’re thinking.” Marc sauntered through into the café, oblivious to anything but his pride. He shielded his eyes as he peered into the shadow, trying to see into the dark room. “You called me here to tell me I can’t run from my problems. I’ve got to face them head on, yeah? I know, I know. There’s got to be a point in every god’s life where… what the bloody hell is going on here?”
Marc’s hands dropped from his face as he took in the scene: Ava held Cash as my fists pummeled into him, Lincoln still frozen, gasping for air, and two bodies from Epsilon House with darkness in their eyes.
Marc’s jaw dropped.
Then Rus and Val advanced on him with their cables extended.
“Now, wait just a minute.” Marc held his hand out. “Think twice before you leap. You attack me, and I end your game.”
But they didn’t change course. They moved toward him with dogged determination. Marc’s usual jovial face morphed into violence.
He waved toward Val, but shock flashed on Marc’s face. Something was supposed to happen and didn’t. “What the hell?”
Petra laughed. “Their souls are anchored in their bodies. You can’t separate them.”
“Then I’ll entangle them.”
“Too late.”
At either side, the two boys forced their live cables into Marc’s body. A mighty roar filled the air with the sizzle and crackle of electricity. He seized, fingers cramping, jaw clenching, hair smoking. He dropped to his knees with the same betrayal in his eyes that Cash had a moment ago.
Chapter 34
“Well, I’d say our experiment was a success.” Petra hooked my finger under Marc’s chin to tilt his head toward us. Electricity surged from Marc into my body, tingling. The cables kept him from teleporting, and the current blocked his ability to clothe himself in illusion. The only thing around his naked body was a cord at his neck with a small vial at the end. He’d toyed with it when I’d found him on the park bench, and Petra had told Urser about it. What was it?
Marc groaned, rolled his head and opened his piercing blue eyes. “Love, what’s going”—he narrowed his eyes. “Wait, you’re not Little Red.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Who are you, and what have you done to her?”
“Oh, she’s still in here somewhere.” My finger tapped my forehead. “Move him next to the hunter.”
Val and Rus dragged Marc to where Cash had been secured to a bar stool by the cord around his neck. He barely retained consciousness. Blood oozed from his wounds. They did the same to Marc, but fixed the live ends of the cables to his skin so the electricity constantly ran through him.
Ava stood to one side of the two, arms folded, pleased with herself. The two boys stood to the right, eyes black, vacant. I didn’t think Ava pieced together what had happened to her Epsilon companions. Sure, she knew they looked feral, had sharp teeth and black eyes, but she hadn’t worked out that she could be next. It was the same darkness that had been injected into the boy we rescued back in Houston. The substance that turned him into a homicidal, drug addicted maniac. Cash said that in his memories, he’d seen it before, back when he was the queen’s enforcer. The prince had stolen original sin and fused it with himself before he infected the first humans. Through his link, he could control them.
But these two had their wits about them and they didn’t leak blackness everywhere. They were less rabid, less feral. More compliant and receptive.
“You see,” Petra said. “We’ve always known she was special, but we didn’t come close did we?”
Marc tried to speak, but everything in him fought the electricity. It was all he could do to keep from passing out.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry, I can answer for both of us. You’ve been keeping secrets from us, Gamekeeper.”
This was a horrible, horrible nightmare.
I couldn’t watch. But I couldn’t close my eyes. They were her eyes now.
“First, we thought she was just a special Nephilim and that we would use her unique skill set to borrow the abilities we needed—to steal your soul, Gamekeeper—and move through the in-between to travel back to the Empire and open the star-gate there. I mean, she had a piece of your soul already, she could move with you, right? It could have worked.”
“Bitch,” Marc managed. “Filthy degenerate.”
“I’m more than that. I’ve discovered we don’t need you anymore. Not with that around your neck.”
“This?” Ava walked over and tugged on his necklace, ripping it free. The venom in Marc’s eyes could have poisoned her where she stood. One of the most powerful gods on earth could vaporize her with a thought. Instead, Ava was free to turn the vial around in her fingers, inspecting it. “What’s all the fuss about?”
“Give it to me,” Petra ordered, holding my palm out.
Ava narrowed her eyes at me. “Tell me what you’ve been keeping from me. First the boys, and now this. I’m starting to believe I’m not important in your little scheme. What’s stopping you using that serum on me?”
My teeth ground with Petra’s frustration. “Give it to me, and I’ll explain.”
“It’s to heal the hunter,” Marc blurted, through chattering teeth. “Give it to him, and I’ll take you to the Empire, Ava. I’ll give you anything you want.”
Ava glanced at Marc, confused. “Why would I need you to take me back to the Empire? If this plan works, then I can take myself back.”
“It’s a bit late for bribes, Gamekeeper,” Petra said. “There’s more to the vial, though, isn’t there, Egnatius.” Marc’s body entered into a fit. The true name-calling triggered bio-electric waves that surged through him, amplifying the wattage already pumping. When he finished, his eyes locked on mine, defeated.
A slight burning smell raked the air.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Whose blood is it?”
Marc’s lips flattened closed.
“Oh you poor love sick puppies. Stop lying to protect her. I was there when you called her Sephie. I remember you ogling that vial, over and over again. Tell me what it’s for.”
Marc spat on the ground. “You’ll pay for this.”
“Give me the vial, Ava. You know you’re too important for the serum. We’d never inject you like those two.”
Ava threw it.
My hand snatched the vial out of the air and pulled the stopper off.
“Don’t touch it,” Marc growled, struggling against his restraints. Fire erupted at his fingertips, ready to throw our way.
“Restrain him, you dolts.”
The two Epsilon monsters took hold of Marc’s wrists. Marc screamed as bones crushed, and the flames died out.
My finger pressed onto the opening of the vial, tilted, and came away red. A resounding tingle shot from the tip of my finger up my forearm. Petra brought my finger to my mouth and licked. Everything inside me shivered and knocked about, charged with something, an echo of understanding. A whirring as memory tried to click in place. Whatever it was, it powered me. Not her me, but me me! Inside my confines, my energy swelled. But as quickly as it rocketed throu
gh me, it left.
Petra stumbled, eyes closed, and she sighed. “That was incredible. The power. Why do you have the blood?” Petra asked. Marc ignored her. A scream ripped from my throat. “You want me to force it out of you, is that it? Shall I start with him?” My finger pointed at Cash.
Marc turned away. “I already told you why I have it.”
“Are you forgetting, Gamekeeper? I can read auras like you. I can tell you’re lying.”
That was news to me. I thought the blood was for Cash.
“Fine. Have it your way.” Petra used telekinesis to bring multiple objects from the server bench and floated them toward Cash and Marc. Metal napkin holders, utensils, coffee machines, all levitated into the air, hovered, and then shot toward Cash’s body. With his thumbs still lodged under the cable around his neck, he was powerless to protect himself. Projectile after projectile collided with him. The dull sounds sickened me.
I screamed from my prison. I threw all my power and energy into that scream and pushed against my restraints, reaching for Cash.
My body doubled over, stumbled. Petra was tired.
Containing The Others had been tiring for me. And usually, when exhaustion overwhelmed me, The Others had been stronger. But this time, I was stronger. It wouldn’t be long now.
I knew The Book of the Dead. Apparently, I bloody well wrote it, and—I looked around—I had reflective surfaces, mirrors on the wall, and life-force was another form of electricity, and if that didn’t work, those cables were full of it. I could split her from Leila. Get her out. If I was truly the queen, then I needed to trust my instincts. And I needed that vial of blood. One taste had almost tipped me into knowing. Even now, my body cried out for it, but just thinking about it, a stronger, more powerful understanding squeezed my heart; Cash needed it more.
I glanced at Cash. He groaned and coughed, making a gurgling sound.
Don’t look at him. Don’t look at his broken and beaten body.
Don’t think about how long it would take him to heal without the queen’s blood. How he wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me ignoring his instructions. But it wasn’t over yet. I needed help. Leila was driving up front with Petra. She was weaker than Petra, but every time I’d noticed a sign of my sister, it had been after The Others had taken my body for a spin, but before I’d regained control. Leila might be stronger when Petra was tired. Like now.
The Game of Gods: Series Box Set Page 68