Clear. Mazoku repelled off the ambulance.
Remember to breathe, yeah?
The driver hit the vehicle into reverse. Before he could do anything else, the windscreen caved in and the mazoku flooded him, tearing into his flesh with shadow talons and jaws. His screaming as his shoulder bones were torn from his body in a horrible fountain of blood made my stomach lurch.
“Fuck!” I was on my feet, covering G as the mazoku entered the main cab of the ambulance, katanas drawn. The mazoku flew at me then recoiled, hissing in frustration.
Still afraid of me, then? Had to love the tenshi blood. Made a few years of ‘Huh?’ make sense.
Poor Fumito. Fuck. His blood painting me, the walls of the ambulance. They’d snagged him as I’d moved to G. If I’d left G open for one moment, they’d swoop in and get him. He sat up, struggling, roaring as he pushed through the pain. He looked like he was gonna puke.
“Stay down, G!” I swung at two mazoku testing me. They avoided every swing, dodging a cut by inches each time.
If they got caught on blades, they were getting themselves sucked down. And that was the last thing I wanted. These weren’t regular old mazoku. They were juiced up from their whole bonding with Bitch Face.
“Get the fuck out of here!” I yelled.
One came up behind G. I spun, slicing and missing again.
Bob and Rose manifested, taking point at the places I couldn’t face, my eyes and ears, guiding my swings as all of Mama Rita’s mazoku filled up the space, closing in, blending together in a wall of dark. Tenshi knew how many there were now.
“I swear I’ll kill you! Stay back!”
When you cut down a regular mazoku, three were born in its place. But with these uber demons, you got five come to the party. I’d seen it for myself in Hyde Park when heading to see the dream witch. Seemed like a lifetime ago.
Time flies when there’s hell around every corner.
My babies growled, hackles rising. The mazoku were inching closer still, hesitant, wanting to make a grab for G who was helpless on the bed, trying to fight his way through his pain and weakness, but really in no state to.
The back doors flew open, crashing to the ground. Mazoku rushed out into the street, making their way into the big body of Mama Rita. They seeped into her, smothered her.
No more in the ambulance.
“Pathetic,” she said. “I thought these creatures were supposed to be protecting you.” She looked up towards the plane, roaring in the sky, the sound of crackling fire too. SCU sirens were screaming in the city.
“There they are,” she said, nodding to my weapons.
Yeah, here they are.
A grunt from beside me and G was on his feet.
“Shit,” I grunted. “What’re you doing. Get back in—”
“No.” A loud response full of that beta fire. He rested his weight on my shoulder, struggling for breath.
Exhausted.
I braced against his bulk as best I could. He was one heavy guy, but I wasn’t built out of paper. After leaning on me for a couple of seconds, he managed to stand on his own.
“How sweet,” Bitch Face drawled.
I ignored her.
“Another one?” She looked skyward.
A missile rose above the tall office buildings lining either side of the street, heading straight for the plane. The aircraft shot out of the way as it was on a string, yanked out of harm’s way.
Mama Rita shook her stupid head. Zach stared at me.
Closer up, Mama Rita had really filled out her already plump face. But with a weird muscle, nothing soft about it. A jawline that shouldn’t exist, her skin super-pale and decorated in black veins, her eyes obsidian and swimming with shadows. Literally. There was mazoku in those peepers.
Zach, though, was emaciated, his now dull olive skin covered in those same veins. The parts of the body not smothered in mazoku was the same color as Mama Rita’s head, only a small patch of Zach there, his one eye as black as hers.
He looked as beat up as G.
Destroy… The dead energy thrummed in my hands, pushing to the surface of the blades. It wanted out, to do what it did best—destroy a living thing. Like a curse. Who knew curses were alive?
It will kill the curse, for the curse is a living curse.
G fell to his knees. Shit. I went to reach for him, but he waved me off. I had to keep him safe. She wasn’t ever laying a hand on him again.
I sent Bob and Rose out to scope the immediate area. Just ‘cos she was Billy-No-Mates for the minute, didn’t mean her cronies weren’t waiting in the wings.
“Well, here we are again,” Mama Rita said, shadowy condensation spilling out of her mouth as she spoke. “It feels like ages since we last spoke.”
“Not long enough.”
She tilted her head. “You were supposed to be dead. How did you manage to cheat your way out of it?”
“Guess what?”
She didn’t answer.
“Oh, go on! Guess!”
She rolled her eyes. “What?”
“It’s none of your fucking business.”
Made her laugh lightly. “Right. That was worth waiting for.”
The mazoku were back on the outside, fanning around her, giving her an inky backdrop.
I stepped in front of G. My babies hadn’t found anything or anyone around. Alone, eh? Might be a mistake. Arrogant. I liked it when a bad guy was arrogant.
Bob covered the back and right of G, with Rose on the left and back.
Good babies…
“You can’t stand against me, Akira. Look at me. Look at us.”
“Someone spreads their steroids on toast,” I shot back.
From Zach’s side, he lifted a big arm, trying to sign. My brother was deaf, obviously unable to use sign language in that condition. I didn’t understand it myself, wanted to learn, but all he had was this attempt to communicate.
Mama Rita’s head snapped around. “What are you trying to say?” She proper scrutinized him. If it wasn’t for the red eyes of the mazoku on me, I’d make my move while she was distracted.
Bloody wankers.
The hand on her side came up and slapped him across the face so hard I thought she’d snapped his neck.
“Why don’t you keep your dirty hand off my bro?” I growled.
“Your bro? Don’t make me laugh, Akira. What do you know about Zach? Nothing. Only that your dad tried to have him killed.”
“But he didn’t.”
“Oh? Is that what he told you?” Her eyes narrowed. “Been filling your head with filth, has he?”
“No more than you have.”
A sardonic smirk. “You’d listen to that man? Over me? I was there for you when he wasn’t.”
“Yeah, and you fucked me right over.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I did, didn’t I? Still, I made a better friend than that thing donating the sperm to your tenshi mother.”
Right. She knew that bit. “Shut your mouth.”
“Tenshi and wolf. A half breed who isn’t one or the other. Back to the quest, he’s going to fail.”
“I wouldn’t be so cocky.” King Daichi had told me I’d fail and look how that’d turned out.
More grinning. “I always thought tenshi would be pretty. Oh, wait. Sorry. You’re a runt. Forgot we’d just covered that.”
“You talk the purest shite.”
She tapped the side of her face with a fleshy finger. “I’d call it pointing out your flaws, tossing barbs, sparring even. I love it. I’ll miss it when you’re gone. You have no idea how much pleasure I took from hitting you with the revelations. Can still see your ugly, confused face.” She took a few steps forward. “But I know your dad wanted me and Zach dead. Don’t ever think you can convince me otherwise. Hitoshi is a vicious liar.”
“You he wanted dead, yeah. Not Zach.”
“Zach is mine. Not his. Not yours.” She wasn’t happy. Good. Saved me from hearing her laughing.
“W
hat’s up? Touched a nerve? Zach ain’t yours either.”
“I’ll kill Gabriel. You’re going to watch him die.”
“Try it, bitch.”
“Do you think I’m afraid of your swords?”
“You should be.”
“Is that right?” She looked up to the plane I was trying to block out. “This was a gift for you, but now I’m not so sure.”
If she wanted me dead, dropping a plane on me would get the job done.
G tried to get up, falling back down with a curse. Bob and Rose gave him invisible nudges with their noses, licking him. He wouldn’t feel it, but my babies loved him.
Just like me.
“The thing is, Akira, I’d planned on having the plane hit the hospital. I knew you were there and was all geared up for an explosive finale. How would your dad have taken that?” She sighed, a wisp of shadow curling up from between her lips. “But then The Chief had to go and ruin everything.”
Don’t remind me…
“At least he hates Hitoshi too. I know, that was a surprise wasn’t it? A man. Hates you, too. I would’ve been okay if his hotel attack had worked. Disappointed, but pleased. Alas, there you are still, like a cockroach that just won’t die.”
“When are we gonna quit the chit chat and get down to business?” I asked.
Pesky ‘duh!’ moment. Now was the real challenge. How was I gonna protect G and fight her at the same time? Just me and him against her and her mazoku.
Where the hell was the cavalry?
She knew what I was thinking. “What to do, what to do?”
The plane roared across the sky. Not downward, but in the direction of—
The explosion shook the ground, even shattered some of the windows of the buildings. Rattled my bones, had me staggering forward. Another boom, distant screams, the sirens still roaring in the night.
I waited for a dust cloud to sweep over us, but only a trace of it crept into the road, drifting across the gap between me and Mama Rita. Not enough to block her out, but a reminder of what she’d just done a few miles away.
Tenshi. She’d… She’d…
“There,” she said. “Still got the hospital. Now. Where were we?”
Mazoku flew at me, recoiled and then went for G. I attacked, spinning, blocking every strike they made as Mama Rita howled with laughter.
Hissing, swipes with claws at my guy. He growled, wolf or not, and tried to get up again—a warrior through and through. This was impossible. She was just gonna try and wear me out, break a hole in my defenses for her shadowy subjects to kill G, then she’d come and finish me once and for all.
Yeah, right. Like I was gonna go down that easy. Call me the wishbone to choke the life out of you before the final curtain fell.
I lunged at the closest mazoku who came within an inch of G. I caught it in the face with my right blade. Black energy was sucked down, the steel of my katana pulsing with white light three times, as they did whenever they took power, then shimmered red—which meant the deal was sealed.
Mazoku energy thrummed down the steel, stroking my fingertips. It’d joined my library of power, a new buddy for the scariest bastard of all that lived in there.
A grin spread across my face as my kill switch was fully flipped—my new, beefed-up switch, the one that came with the creepy inner whispers and was an extra driving force for the killer inside me.
Your blood is dangerous. You are not quite wolf, not quite tenshi—something else. Blood of our blood, yes, and a creature capable of saving the world, yet also one capable of great destruction. Good old words of the tenshi, them. Head-messing words.
Which one was I? Savior or destroyer?
Speed and rage were an awesome mix, and I got to work, attacking the shit out of the mazoku, the lava inside rising and rising, ready to spill down the sides of the mountain.
A flash beside me, a claw raked down G’s arm, three gouge marks across his flesh. I killed the mazoku, a slice to its head that cut right through shadow, only for the shadow to get sucked down into my weapon.
“G!”
“I’m okay…” He grabbed his arm, seeing to the bleeding.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
One by one, mazoku were sucked down into my blades before they could respawn. These babies weren’t giving them a chance to be anything more than a milkshake to my pointy straws.
Could do with a strawberry milkshake right now.
Last mazoku standing. It hovered close by, just out of striking distance. Hissing, shitting itself just like Mama Rita behind it. I mean, she was furious, yeah, but I could tell there was fear there. In fact, Bob and Rose were picking up on the stink of it, sending it back to me.
Tasty. Better than a Bakewell tart.
Okay, let’s not go too far.
There was me thinking the last mazoku would retreat back its master, then they could run away and lick their wounds. Not that I’d let them, but yeah. Wasn’t expecting it to be a brave little soldier.
It came at me, shrieking, and I made short work of the fucker.
Whoa. A wave of power washed over me, sending me staggering back. So much juice loaded up in my library.
Power.
Hungry for power.
So much power at my fingertips.
I was a walking hub of destruction, a weapon against the curse, against the world, against all my enemies. Kill ‘em all! Mega fun, eh? Think of all my mazoku, transformed into my toys, going after Mama Rita, stalking the elves, or hunting down Violet Cross—wherever she was.
Violet. Gang queen witch. She’d been the one to actually kill me. Fake kill me. Could have been real, though. She needed to suffer. I needed to find her to draw out her suffering before she snuffed it.
No quickies here.
Two things happened to stop me drifting off into scary places.
Number one: Mama Rita groaned. Man, what a sweet sound.
Number two: She fell to her knees. Even sweeter sight.
“You good?” I looked down at G.
“I’m fine, Aki. Didn’t do any severe damage.”
His arm was bleeding, but nothing horrendous. Thank the tenshi!
“You sure?” I asked.
“Yes. Give me your phone. I’ll call for help.”
I did as he asked. Sounded like help was coming. Vehicles close by, SCU sirens getting closer, wolves would be with them too. Good, good.
First things first, though.
“Well, well, well.” I started walking towards the Queen of Arseholes, bristling with desire. Not the sexy kind, but the murderous sort. Funny how they were always parallel.
“Get away from me,” she grunted, struggling to get to her feet.
She was naked, no more shadows. Her eyes were now gray and bloodshot. Zach the same.
“I mean it,” she threatened weakly.
No more shadow breath either.
She fell back onto her knees.
“You should’ve thought this shit through,” I said, getting closer. “You’ve got nothing left. Empty of mazoku. What are you now without your freaky friends, eh? Really, I’d love to know.”
Human.
“Get the fuck away from me!”
“You’re about as scary as a paper plate taking on a fireball.”
“Get—”
“Stay on your knees!” I roared as she tried getting up again.
Another explosion punctuated my words, reminding me that this bitch had just taken down the hospital, killing more innocent people. She was good at that, really fancied herself a master of death and destruction.
Yeah, right. We’d fucking see about that.
She screamed as I came deadly close, lifting my katanas. “Should be on your belly like the slug you are. You’re done. So, so done.”
“I am the mazoku queen!” she screeched.
My bro was watching me with a calmness that took me by surprise. The fear had gone. It was like he was resolved to die. There was a real chance he would.
Three b
lack cars tore into the street, braking to hard stops. Something like ten wolves leaped out of the vehicles, guns out, red lasers pointed at the creature facing the end.
A blue SCU van rolled up. Six agents in blue jumped out. Another came, and another six people leaped out of the doors.
“Secure the area!” someone ordered. “Help the beta.”
Movement around me. I glanced over my shoulder. G was being helped up, lead to a vehicle. He was okay. He’d have that wound looked at and be taken to a safe place.
“She’s mine,” I said.
“Sir?” the wolf guy next to me questioned. “We need to get out of here.”
I lifted my katanas. “She dies first.”
“Sir, let—”
“No!” I boomed. “She’s mine!”
Another softer explosion from the direction of the hospital.
Hissing, the haunting shriek of the mazoku. Two of them tore through the streets, spinning for their new queen.
Guns fired, a burst of white light in the form of airborne strands. A mazoku trap. But the fuckers had already reached her, absorbing into that big body.
Ah, shite bags!
She laughed, black veins spiderwebbing across her skin, eyes flushing onyx again. Zach’s calm had gone, replaced with… Was that anger?
Energy boost. Great. Just what I needed.
Mama Rita was on her feet. She was gonna get away from me.
No…
The hand on Zach’s side of the body lifted and delivered an uppercut to his mother’s chin. Her head snapped back, mazoku hissing, slithering over the skin towards him, wrapping around his neck. His eye bugged out, mouth dropping open as they choked him.
“You ungrateful swine!” she howled, retaliating with her own punch.
Enough. No more. This was my moment. I had to try this, had wanted to try it since the two of them had joined together.
I charged and swung downward with both blades together, aiming at the space between their heads. Direct hit! The steel cleaved through the flesh, drinking down mazoku, Mama Rita screaming in agony as I went all the way down.
A loud crack like glass meeting rock. An invisible force sent me flying backward. I landed hard on the bonnet of a car, dropping my katanas at the impact on my spine. I yelped in pain, grateful that my head didn’t crack open.
Four Moons: The Complete Collection: (Books 1 - 4) Page 66