Four Moons: The Complete Collection: (Books 1 - 4)

by Amos, Richard

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I demanded.

  “As polite as ever.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Just wanted to check in with my dear friend.”

  “Wish you hadn’t. Kind of shat on my morning now.”

  “Glad to help.”

  G bristled beside me but kept quiet.

  “It’s been a while,” she said.

  “Two weeks,” I countered. “Shame, I’m seeing you again with blood in your veins.”

  “Oh, Akira. What about your poor brother here? You’d want him dead too?”

  Zach didn’t take his eyes off me at all.

  “Is that your way of trying to rattle me? Bit rubbish.”

  “No, I can see you already are.” Then her second round of smirking died as a hissing filled the mossy hallway. “No,” she responded to it. “Please. I know…it’s just…yes…he has to see…yes…I will…please don’t fear…”

  Chatting to her new buddies. Fun. I so wasn’t here for it. I’d cut her down now.

  Zach.

  Shit.

  I had to do something, get her locked up, so I could figure out the Zach issue. I wasn’t magical, so couldn’t trap the mazoku in a trapping spell, which would take time anyway.

  She had to be stopped. We had to know what she was planning, what she’d done to the moon. First that, then stop her.

  Damn.

  How the hell was I gonna play this without driving a sword through her head? If her head died, would Zach be okay?

  No. ‘Cos the mazoku were inside him.

  Shit!

  “What’s the matter, Akira?” She was grinning again.

  The face of a person I’d loved. My bestie. I didn’t answer her, just kept on staring at the monster she now was.

  “Trying to find some new pixie friends?” she asked.

  The two buzzers hadn’t said a word or made the slightest noise. Jaws on the floor, probably.

  “What do you want?” I finally spoke.

  She tilted her head in the direction of her terrified son, not looking in my direction. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you? For me to spill the beans. Where would the fun be in that?”

  Funny how a once soothing voice was now like talons on a fucking chalkboard. “Ah, dunno. Might be fun.”

  Screw it. I could maim her, take a leg off or something, then bung her in a cell. I sprang forward, and an almighty hiss, on the edge of being a scream, shook the room. I went for her right leg, the hissing not enough to stop my flow, but she leaped back, moving faster than expected.

  Balls!

  A fist cracked me in the forehead, and I landed on my arse, not dropping my swords. Fine. Fool me just this once.

  Mama Rita laughed, a giggle laced with the shadows of the mazoku. That’d been some right hook. Those creeps were giving her some extra juice.

  The anger at being left in the dark about her plans grated on me every minute of the day, along with the rest of her scummy existence. Having her right in front of me after all that’d gone down was really pushing me through the tiniest holes on that sodding grater.

  I charged again, almost taking her head off. The move had come from the darkest pit in me, that place I go to when the kill switch is proper on. If she hadn’t moved, then fallen backward down the stairs with that horrible mazoku shriek coming out of her mouth, it would’ve been her head rolling down the green steps.

  Whoa. Shit. I couldn’t let anger fuck this up. Thank the tenshi I had a kill switch for the kill switch.

  “Aki,” G said behind me. “We need to get out of here right now.”

  “Ally and Drew!” I blurted. “Oh, no.” She’d have attacked them in their car.

  By the power of words, but not really, they appeared on the stairwell, Drew talking into his phone.

  I let out a sigh of relief.

  The creature was back on its feet. “You little shit,” Mama Rita seethed.

  Zach had a cut on his left cheek, but she was mark-free. Wasn’t the aim of the game. She should take the rough and tumble, not my bro.

  “Trapped. Should’ve stayed away.” I pointed my swords at her. “Time to throw in the towel.”

  Tears were falling from Zach’s eyes. Shit. Mama Rita turned to look at him, scowling. The arm on her side of the body lifted, then swung, her hand slapping him so hard across his face that her red handprint was there straight away.

  Blood started to pour from his nose.

  “Suck it up, son! Why do you keep resisting?” Her head snapped back round to me.

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Didn’t mean to let that one drop, eh?”

  Scowl, scowl, scowl. Ha!

  “Enough of this!” G boomed. “This ends right here. There’s nowhere left for you to run.” He took a step forward, putting himself between me and the monster. You’re—"

  Mama Rita hissed, a cloud of black rushing at G. He immediately hit the moss, taking me with him with super-reflexes. The shadow shot down the hallway. I twisted to watch it stop and turn, casting red eyes my way.

  A mazoku was free. Oh, fuck! Not good!

  It was standing right beside Bruce and Trixie—who was still in the jar. It happened so quick. The demon snatched Bruce in its clawed hand and crushed. Bruce’s scream was only a second long before his light when out. Seconds later, the demon had Trixie out of the jam jar to meet the same fate.

  “Very cozy,” Mama Rita said.

  I turned to face her, G’s body was spread out beside me. His top half was raised up, golden eyes locked to the beast, a big hand on my chest, pinning me down as I propped myself up on my elbows.

  Protecting me.

  Keeping me safe.

  But the mazoku would hurt him, not me. This should be the other way round. And we should be vertical, not down here. Should didn’t always mean right. He knew what he was doing. We’d spring up in the right moment. I knew that, he knew that. I was just angsty to kick the creature’s arse so fucking hard.

  “Fuck off,” I snapped.

  “Don’t mind us if you want to roll around on the floor.”

  Gabriel growled. It went from him through to me, making my bones tremble. “You’re not leaving here.”

  Mama Rita looked like the cat who got all the cream and found a mouse nest the size of London beside it. “Is that so?”

  “You—”

  She cut me off before I could get a diss in. “I think you’ve got all this wrong, all of you. You seem to think this is going to go the way it always goes in these situations. There.” She lifted an arm, a finger pointing up as if testing the wind. “Hear that?”

  I did. SCU sirens.

  “They mean nothing,” she added. “This is only the beginning. You have nothing, and I have everything. Give up, shall we? None of you are leaving this building. You all need a demonstration before death.”

  Ally went to move but froze as Mama Rita’s head snapped round, turning all the way like an owl’s. “Move, and the mazoku will paint the floor with your guts.”

  “Then do it,” I barked. “Come on. What’s all this chit chat? Hearing so much hot air and not much else.” I should keep quiet and was normally good at not stirring the pot too much until I had the upper hand. But, man, she was winding me the hell up.

  A hiss from behind. The pixie-killing mazoku shot back overhead, returning to the hosting monster. Not good to have mazoku free. Really not good.

  “You call the death of those pixies nothing?” Hissing. “Yes…we will…yes…” Her body jolted, and she wobbled, almost taking another tumble down the stairs. From her jeans pocket, she pulled out a pixie, glowing the wrong color—the color of smoldering embers. Pixies didn’t turn that shade.

  “Guess what?” Mama Rita said, all cheery.

  No one answered.

  “Well? Come on!”

  “No one’s saying what!” I snapped.

  “Ha! You just did!” She laughed.

  The fuck? “Yeah, funny.”

  “It was. Any
way, guess what? No need to answer again. It turns out, to no surprise of anyone with a brain, that there’s a lot of people around the world who hate the werewolves and all the power they have.”

  G got to his feet, taking me by the hand and hauling me upright before I could react. Felt awesome to be vertical again.

  “Got some spoilers for us?” I asked. “Goodie!”

  “You wish. But I’ll let you in on this.”

  I didn’t like the look of that glowing pixie in her hand. She’d once been an elf, and elves loved a good old inanimate object to infuse with their power. That’s how their magic worked. But she wasn’t an elf anymore, all her elfy nature sucked down by my proper swords which were now in the moon. And, as far as I knew, an elf wouldn’t be able to infuse a living thing.

  That meant she’d had warlock or witch help to do whatever had been done to the buzzer.

  I waited.

  Shit.

  “I have friends in low places,” she added.

  What was I even waiting for? We needed to get out of here. “Come on then,” I said. “What’ve you done to it?”

  “What, this?” She slammed the hand holding the pixie into the moss, sinking it in deep. Mama Rita’s wicked grin was a toxic split in her head. Then the hand snapped back, now empty.

  The moss started to smoke.

  Oh, nuts!

  “Pixies,” she said. “I never knew they could be so useful.”

  Mama Rita leaped over the side of the stairs, totally avoiding Ally and Drew.

  The two wolves gave chase, and we followed. It was a combination of chase and getting the hell out of the hollow.

  Pixies were fluttering outside their doors, demanding to know what was going on.

  “Get out of here!” G bellowed. “Leave everything. Run. Now!”

  Shock and mutterings and confusion.

  “You heard the man!” I cried. “Move your tiny arses if you want to live!”

  Okay, panic trigger. Oh, well. Got them flying. I hoped all of them.

  The hollow began to tremble.

  I took the stairs as fast as I could, the trembling becoming a violent shake, the moss walls splitting, even the stairs wobbling beneath me.

  Like hell was I dying here!

  G spun, grabbed me, and slung me over his shoulder. The act was so quick it took a minute to realize I was upside down, my face buried in his arse.

  “Put me down!”

  “Shut up, Aki.”

  I was a dickhead a lot, and I mean a lot, but I knew when to go with something. Gabriel was faster than me, even with me slung over his back. Full-blooded werewolves tended to have those mad speed skills. Didn’t matter how quick I was. He was loads more steps ahead. Plus, we were like halfway down the shaking hollow stairs and really needed to up the pace.

  Fine.

  Whatever.

  Let me be carried.

  There were worse places to have my head buried…

  Shit.

  This was so not the time to be thinking about those buns!

  Bits of moss fell onto my head, the floor cracking behind us. I kept my eyes away from G as best I could. The proximity to his bum was quickly being lost in the worry over the walls smoking more and more. The stench of burning soon followed, the smoke thickening, flooding the stairwell.

  Pixies were buzzing all over the place in a panic. Some went out the tiny windows, some just, well, got themselves in a right state.

  “Fire!” I yelled, hoping that would slap them into action. “Get the hell out of here!”

  Glowing from above caught my eye. Not green or pink or blue or red. No pixie lights. Amber. Orange. Fire.

  Oh, fuck.

  It was growing brighter, moving, burning.

  G moved faster, passing Ally and Drew, who were almost side by side with their beta.

  Mama Rita was howling with laughter in the distance, the fire expanding until heat started to fill the hollow, kissing my face. It was moving quickly.

  I held my breath…

  Chapter Five

  Gabriel leaped into moving traffic with me still on his back, weaving in and out, ignoring the blasts of horns until we got clear of the hollow.

  He put me down, and I spun, facing the structure as Ally and Drew met us.

  The whole thing was ablaze, a towering inferno.

  Not every pixie had got out. I could hear them screaming.

  The flames were bright, reaching for the sky, licking at the tower blocks either side. People flooded out of the flats, ran down the street screaming. Vehicles screeched to a halt, plowed into one another. Chaos took hold. A pile-up of cars, the bloody screams of fleeing pedestrians as a car plowed into them. The SCU and fire brigade sirens were close, but we needed to get to a safer position before—

  I dove out of the way in time—me and G one way, Ally and Drew the other—as a van crashed through the pharmacy we’d been standing in front of.

  G pulled me to my feet. “Come on!”

  We ran down an alleyway, stopping at the end.

  An explosion, a dust cloud rushing down the alley. We got out of its path as it burst through the mouth of the dark stretch, dust spewed all over the parallel street.

  “Shit,” I gasped. “We have to get back there. Help. Do something. Shit.”

  “No. You’re staying right there, Aki. This was a mistake.”

  “What?”

  But he was on his phone. “Pick up requested. Yes. Avoid Holloway Road completely. Use the back streets.” He hung up.

  “G—”

  “No. I mean it. You stay right there.” He drew in a deep breath and stepped closer. His tracksuit was covered in dust, as was I. “Are you okay?”

  Hands on my shoulders, his warm breath on my face. All that cinnamon and orange, the closeness, the way he inspected me, how one hand came off my right shoulder and tilted my chin, our eyes meeting. Locked stares. He wasn’t just inspecting me; he was really looking at me.

  His lips were close enough to kiss…again, round two.

  I looked away.

  This wasn’t right.

  “I’m fine, G.”

  His hands fell away completely. “Good. I’m glad.

  “You?”

  “I’m fine, Aki.

  In that moment, Ally and Drew, as dusty as we were, came running over.

  Ally was dark-skinned with the most amazing white quiff I’d ever seen. No matter what, it never seemed to be out of place. Drew was fair with messy blond hair that made him look like a surfer, but he actually hated the water—he’d told me once over a fudge brownie I’d made him that he’d rather climb Everest in nothing but a pair of Y-fronts than step one foot in the sea.

  Maybe that was a bit on the extreme side.

  The pair of them always wore black suits with white shirts and black ties, looking proper slick. Now they were a hot mess, apart from Ally’s quiff.

  “You good?” Ally asked, a gun in her hand.

  G nodded. “Pick up is coming.”

  “Cool,” Derek added, brushing off his sleeves—which was totally pointless.

  I sat on a low wall nearby, the weight of everything suddenly pushing down on me. I leaned forward, my head between my legs, arms resting on my thighs.

  There was nothing I could do to help. Zilch. I wasn’t a medical geezer or anything like that. I had nothing but my fighting and baking skills. What good were they in these situations? The only fight needed now was the fight for the injured, the fight for life, to try and fix some of the damage done.

  The whole hollow. I could hear the crackling of the fire from here, smell the smoke, still hear the laughing of that bitch echoing in my skull.

  I summoned my babies. “See if she’s around.” They did as they were asked.

  “Aki?” G sat next to me. A hand on me again, resting on my spine.

  “If I hadn’t gone there, this wouldn’t have happened, G.” I didn’t have the strength to lift my head. “You were right. This was a mistake.”

>   “I’m sorry, Aki.”

  “I made this mess.”

  “No, don’t say that.”

  “I fucked those people over ‘cos I wanted to hunt. I was mega wrong.”

  “Aki. Please. This isn’t on you. This was her.”

  “I just need a moment.”

  With G caressing my spine, I closed my eyes, falling into his touch. It was reassuring to know he was there and stopping me from screaming my lungs out.

  It wasn’t even midday yet.

  Bob and Rose returned, sad, empty. Mama Rita was gone.

  * * *

  Two mega-muscled wolves in a black SUV had rocked up and quickly whisked us away. Rather than take us back to mine, we were heading for The Spire—my dad’s house and the hell hole that was once my childhood home. Dear old Dad had insisted on it as soon as he’d found out what’d gone down.

  I sat in the back of the eight-seater with G, quiet, not wanting to talk. He respected that, they all did. I just watched London whiz by until I spotted the grand iron fences surrounding The Spire—a towering tube of glass with a frosted glass wolf head sitting at the top like some all-seeing, erm, wolf.

  We passed through the gates.

  “Here we are again,” I mumbled, taking in the dark gardens that still looked beautiful and immaculate in the moonlight. There were even some damn fireflies to paint the picture prettier than it needed it to be.

  As predicted, there was an envoy waiting for us on the steps of The Spire. One I didn’t wanna see. Colin and Layla—two of the ten uber wolves.

  Colin.

  I lowered my head. Even though the windows were tinted, I wanted to delay him getting to lay his eyes on me for as long as I could.

  My lips were suddenly dry, my palms sweaty.

  The wolves who’d picked us up from the chaos of Holloway Road opened the SUV doors for us, and I stepped out into the cool air, not looking in Colin’s direction. He moved in the periphery of my vision as I approached the steps, G by my side, Ally and Drew behind us.

  I kept my eyes on Layla, the redhead with the milky skin and blood-red lips, all suited and booted in navy.

  She bowed. “Akira,” she said in a breathy voice. “Good to see you again.”

  I nodded, my throat closing up at the closeness of that piece of shit a few feet away. Had I just seen the wanker bow too? What the fuck was wrong with him?