My feet have carried me to the priest, and I bend over him. My fingers fumble with the tight rope, and I shake my head over and over. “I’m so sorry.”
A sudden cough makes me topple over.
“You’re alive!” I gasp.
A splinter of sense returns to me, and I take my athame to cut his ropes. “Did you give in?”
All he does is blink and swallow, blink and swallow. So I ask again, “Did you give in? Did he convince you that Lucifer is better than God?”
He lifts the arm I freed and wipes the blood out of his eyes, then coughs.
No answer.
I cut the rest of the ropes and pull them off him.
With my face close to his, I try again. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
More coughing and blinking.
My vision goes hazy. I have to know before Trevor gets another chance to kill this man. I have to know!
I take the priest by the shoulders and shake him. “Do you still have faith in God? Tell me!”
Suddenly Vicky grabs my arm and pulls me back. “What are you doing? This man has been through enough!”
“What?” I try to look at her, but she’s nothing but a moving shadow. My eyes are unable to focus, and I have a hard time remembering where I am.
“We’re here to help him, not torture him further!”
When my hand finds the bare, concrete wall, the cold of the cracked surface seeps into my limbs and slowly wakes me up. Bit by bit, everything around me turns from colored specks back into objects and people. D’Maeo, Gisella and Taylar lift the bar counter while Maël, Jeep and Charlie stand guard on the other side of the trapped earth elemental. Little colorless particles dance around them, and I shake my head to clear my vision, but it’s just dust rising from the furniture.
When I turn my gaze back to Vicky, she looks like a gorgeous ghost dressed in black again. She has helped the priest into a sitting position and is dabbing his face with a wet handkerchief.
When she sees me looking, she glares. “What were you thinking?”
Guilt and disgust wash over me. “I’m sorry!” Tears stream down my face and my legs give in.
I land on the floor in a sobbing heap. “I’m sorry!” I repeat. “For a moment I couldn’t think straight anymore. I’m just so scared. We can’t lose another soul, Vicky. We can’t.”
Her arms wrap around me like soft blankets, and I rest my head against her shoulder. “I can’t do this anymore,” I whisper. “I’m not a sensible adult. I’m just a sixteen-year-old boy.”
A heavy hand leans on my shoulder. “You are so much more, my son.”
With swollen eyes, I look up at the priest. He’s smiling through several knocked-out teeth. “I believe in you as much as I believe in God himself. He sent you and your friends to me, and I see now that it was not only a test for me, but also for you.” He squeezes my shoulder. “And you passed, son. You saved me. You showed me that there is still so much good in people. That some still understand the importance of sacrifice. You showed me that God helps the good and punishes the bad. And He makes sure that we keep learning in the process. He involves us in his battle against evil, because we matter.”
My tears have dried, and I realize my mouth has fallen open. I grab his hand and squeeze back. “That was a great speech.”
He helps me up, still smiling. “It wasn’t just a speech, Dante. It was the truth.”
“You know what? I’m actually starting to believe that.” I pull him into a hug, which he accepts happily.
“Keep fighting, son,” he says as we let go. “You can do so much more than you realize.”
We all turn when Taylar curses fiercely.
Leaning on each other, we walk over to where the others are standing, panting as if they’re actually alive, except for Charlie and Gisella who are leaning against a table with content expressions.
“Sorry, Father,” Taylar says with a bow of his head. “I didn’t mean to curse.”
“What happened?” I inquire.
Charlie chuckles. “Well, you know, with everyone trying to kill him, I guess Trevor forgot about the spell for a moment.”
Gisella spreads her hands with a grin. “He vanished.”
My mouth twitches, but not from delight. “I would’ve felt better if he was actually dead, but I guess this will have to do.”
Jeep bends down and picks something up. “Look what fell out of his pocket.”
I gasp. “The Cards of Death!”
He hands them to me, but as soon as I touch them, they fall apart.
As the ash whirls down, Jeep shakes his head. “Oh good, more dust, this basement could use some.”
I grin. “You know what this means, right?”
Gisella kicks a chair out of her way and joins us. “What does it mean?”
I put my arm around the priest again. “That we succeeded.” I pull the handkerchief from Vicky’s hand and wipe off a trail of blood stuck to the priest’s neck. “You are safe.”
“Well then, what are we still doing in this dump?” Gisella changes her blades back into hands and beckons us. “Let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER 43
I’m the first to storm into the kitchen and startle Mom and Mona.
“We did it!” I take Mona’s hand and kiss it. “Thank you, thank you, thank you for calling Quinn.”
Then I grab Mom and dance with her around the kitchen. “We did it!”
When I finally let go and drop into my chair, the others are already leaning back in their seats and passing around cookies.
Mom is glowing, and I send her a wink.
“So, it went well,” she deduces. “Did you also take out Trevor?”
I stick a whole cookie into my mouth and let the sweetness trickle onto my tongue. “Unfortunately not.”
When I don’t elaborate, D’Maeo brings them up to speed.
“Oh, that reminds me!” I yell so suddenly that Taylar and Charlie choke on their cookies.
“We have to undo Trevor’s spell on you.”
I fill Mona and Mom in on what happened to them when they crashed with Mona’s car.
“Which I still have to fix, by the way,” Mona interrupts.
“You do,” I say with a smile, “because I assume you’ll need to bring over some stuff if you’re moving in here, won’t you? Or will you do that with your magic?”
Her cheeks glow red. “Actually, love, I’ve already collected everything I need. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not! I love having us all together here like a big family.”
Her gaze flickers to D’Maeo for a second before returning to me. “Thank you, Dante, I love being a part of it.”
“So anyway.” Slamming my hands on the table I stand up. “I just had a better idea than just undoing Trevor’s spell.” I lean forward. “What if we reverse it? We could find out where Trevor went and take care of him for real.”
“Or we could just scry,” Jeep shrugs.
“No no no.” I shake my head. “No, because scrying will only tell us where he is. If that even works, since he’s in another world. But if we reverse his own spell, we’ll be able to hear and see exactly what he’s up to.” I spread my arms. “Wouldn’t it be great if we would know when demons were coming our way? If we knew their next step? If we play this well, we may never need the Cards of Death again!”
D’Maeo nods pensively. “I think he’ll work it out in no-time, but it’s worth a shot.”
I frown. “And here I thought I was the pessimistic one.” I wave his answer away before he even utters it. “Never mind, let’s reverse this spell. I’d love to see if it works.”
There’s no spying spell in Dad’s notebook, so I end up writing a brand new one.
Smiling brightly, I hand it to Vicky so she can collect everything I need. “At least we don’t have to worry about broken spells anymore.”
The adrenaline of saving the priest sti
ll runs through my veins and makes me giddy.
Mona crushes and boils the herbs, and I place the candles just outside the back door while Maël and D’Maeo keep watch.
“Here’s your incense.” Vicky presses her lips on mine when I take the stick from her. She’s as elated as I am.
Mona steps outside, followed by a hovering pan kept in the air by her sparks. “Chop chop, kids, we’ve got work to do.”
I straighten my back. “I’m ready.”
The pan full of herb mush lands between the candles.
“Let’s do this,” I say, lighting the candles one by one and drawing a circle around them with the goo from the pan. With the lit incense stick in my hand, I slowly follow the line and say the words I’ve written.
“Words of spell in the air,
collect your magic and prepare.
Stop what you were made to do,
and forget what you once knew.
Don’t yet turn yourself to dust,
but gather in this place of trust.
Turn the eye that spies so well
onto the one that cast the spell.
Be as silent as a bird
that is neither seen nor heard.
When discovery comes near
make sure you’re no longer here.”
“That is brilliant,” Charlie mutters, and Vicky hushes him.
The muddy, boiled substance rises up from the grass with a soft sputter and twists around me from my feet up to my head. Then it floats back down, a wisp of brown, green and black that for a moment seems to form letters. They move through the flames of the candles and take the light with them before vanishing into the grass.
We all wait silently for something to happen.
Nothing does.
“Did it work?” Taylar asks.
I collect the pan and candles to hide my doubts. “Of course it did.”
“Then why isn’t Trevor appearing in front of us?”
“Well… he’s probably still passed out or something.” I push the idea of failure to the darkest corner of my mind. I’m sick of negative feelings. “So, what’s our next move? We’ve got so much to do that I don’t know where to start anymore.”
Gisella hauls herself up from the grass. “Let’s go see my aunt. I think it’s about time we got that curse sorted out.” She nods at Vicky. “Don’t you agree?”
My beautiful girl straightens her leather jacket and tosses the blonde tips of her black hair over her shoulder. “Hell yeah.”
Charlie and I exchange a grin. Who would’ve thought we’d end up dating such kick-ass and gorgeous girls?
“And having so many new friends?” Quinn says in my head.
For a second I don’t think anything back. But when he remains silent, I have to ask. So Quinn, did you come bearing good news?
There’s no answer and I shift my feet nervously. Quinn?
“I’m sorry, Dante. It is not good news.”
What’s next?
Do you want to know what Quinn has come to say? Are you curious where Trevor and Paul went and are you dying to finally find out why Maël has such an aversion to food? Do you want to know what the consequences are of the deal that Dante made at the black market?
Then be sure to move on to book 5: Cards of Death - The Fifth Portal.
It will be released on June 6th 2020, but you can already read part of the first chapter on the next pages.
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Found a mistake?
The Fourth Soul has gone through several rounds of beta reading and editing. If you found a typographical, grammatical, or other error which impacted your enjoyment of the book, we offer our apologies and ask that you let us know, so we can fix it for future readers.
You can email your feedback to: [email protected].
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Lots of thanks to my valuable beta readers Mari Lara, William Case and Jolena Foster.
Thanks to you, the reader, for reading the figments of my imagination.
Thanks to everyone who took (or is going to take) the time to leave a review and/or recommend my book(s) to other readers. If I could hug you, I would.
Preview
Cards of Death book 5
The Fifth Portal
CHAPTER 1
All faces turn to Quinn as he appears, tall and dark in his human form, and looking more worried than I’ve ever seen him.
“Quinn has some bad news,” I say before anyone has the chance to greet him.
The smiles forming on the others’ faces falter.
The angel lets out a heavy sigh and rakes a hand through his short curls. “I’m sorry, guys, I’ve been sent to tell you your actions have disturbed the balance between good and evil. Fix it or the world is doomed.”
Jeep takes off his hat and wipes it several times, even though there’s no dirt on it.
“Bad news, huh? That was an understatement,” he mumbles.
We stand there frozen, between the protective circle and the back door of Darkwood Manor, and it’s as if my brain has completely shut down. And it’s not just me. Everyone has a blank look on their face.
After a long and awkward silence I finally manage to push some words out of my throat. “I don’t get it, we saved the fourth soul. How can that disturb the balance? We’re supposed to save those souls, right?”
Quinn nods solemnly. “Yes, you did well. But you also did something else.”
When he doesn’t continue straight away Gisella steps closer and places her hands on her hips. “Spit it out already. What was it then? What did we do wrong?”
His mouth twitches up a little as he looks at her and I think back to a few minutes ago, when everything was still great. When Charlie and I were feeling happy because of the awesome girls we’re dating. Judging by the start of the grin on his lips Quinn must be thinking the same, but his gaze is overshadowed by sadness.
A cold wind pulls at my clothes and dark clouds roll in, as if the weather already knows what Quinn is about to say. Or is it just me, unconsciously changing it to fit my mood?
Either way, I’m growing impatient. “Just tell us, Quinn.”
He presses the bridge of his nose. “Apparently you sent some people and a small army of demons to another place?”
Cold grabs my chest, but it’s not the wind this time. “Yes, we did. Why?”
“They ended up somewhere they shouldn’t have. You’ll have to get them back, or kill them if you must, before it’s too late to restore the balance.”
Warmth floods back into my body. “Sure, we can do that. Where are they?”
His shoulders move up, causing my newfound hope to shatter.
“I don’t know. This is all I was told. We’re not supposed to interfere.” He gives me a small smile. “Bringing you this message was the best I could do.”
I shake my head. No more negativity. No more doubts. “It’s fine, it’s enough. We’ll figure it out, we always do.”
His smile widens. “That’s the spirit!”
And without warning he vanishes.
&n
bsp; “Ain’t he a perfect ray of sunshine?” Gisella remarks, finally lowering her arms.
Feeling the need to defend my friend, I say, “I think he’s as frustrated as we are at not being allowed to help.”
I look around for support and thankfully most of the others nod in agreement.
But my breath catches in my throat when my gaze falls upon D’Maeo and I see something dark moving in his eyes. I squint against the sunlight as the clouds above us part. D’Maeo swats at something in front of his face and a fly buzzes off. I let out a silent sigh and turn. “Come on, guys. Let’s sit down and eat something first. Some of us need the energy.”
Vicky pushes me aside in a mock race to the kitchen. “And some of us need the happiness,” she calls over her shoulder.
Mona follows, smiling again now that she’s able to return to what she’s best at: spoiling us rotten. “How about some waffles?” she suggests, while her sparkles are already pulling the ingredients out of the cupboards in the kitchen.
Taylar hurries past me. “I love waffles.”
“Who doesn’t,” I answer, just as Maël gestures for me to go inside.
“Right,” I say, “you don’t.”
The look of containment is immediately replaced by one of hurt. She goes a shade more transparent and her golden headpiece seems to lose its shine.
I stay where I am while the others file into the kitchen, and keep my eyes on Maël, who doesn’t move either.
When we’re finally alone outside, I try to conjure a reassuring smile. “I’d like to talk to you, Maël. I think it’s time you told me why you’ve got such an aversion to food.”
Her jaw is set tight, making her look more like a stubborn princess than a queen.
The Fourth Soul: (Cards of Death book 4) Page 23