Winter Blood: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Coldharbour Chronicles Book 4)

by Richard Amos

  “I think not, weapon,” he said.

  “Yeah? I think yes, knob head!” I went for him, but a magical force locked me in its hold.

  “Di dew dood ty so-some stooopid sfit,” the white eye guy said through the filter of a broken nose behind me.

  “Come let me get a look at you, Whitey.” Despite the bravado, I was in serious panic-mode. I’d only managed to get a few feet away.

  Now what?

  Searching … Hecate replied.

  There had to be a way because no one was coming for me. I had to get out.

  The white eye guy’s hold was a magical python, crushing my body to the point of suffocation. My shield flickered as I tried to bring it up. I was being suppressed.

  Fuck. Well, I’d have to think harder, push through the protests of my bones and muscles being squeezed.

  The white eye guy came around to my front. His nose was gushing blood, staining his stupid beard. He was scowling worse than Randy, the goblin, ever could.

  “You don’t look happy, Whitey,” I mocked.

  He backhanded me, my head not moving under the weight of his slap on account of being as still as stone.

  Pain bloomed in my cheek, and my head spiked with ache. But I grinned at the wanker. “Hot,” I whispered. “Do it again. Slap me, bitch.” Fuck the pain. I was in goading mode.

  He raised a fist to me. I noticed his left hand held his wounded groin.

  “Enough,” Brother Bennett commanded. “We have no time for nonsense.”

  “Oh, we do,” I countered. “I’d love to go a few rounds with him.”

  My lips slammed shut as the white eye guy forced my lips to be zipped.

  Fine. Gave me time to think.

  More beast priests filled the hallway. It was a ruin of a place, blackened as if a fire had ripped through it some time ago. Curiously, there was no smell here.

  “Move,” Brother Bennett commanded.

  I was pulled along on an invisible leash, my feet off the ground.

  The place was a mansion, mostly hollow and crumbling, dark moss growing on the floor, on the cracked bricks. Glimpses of a night sky loaded with stars came through gaping holes above me, through broken windows and walls that’d fallen down. I could see this had once been an amazing place, bloody huge and probably full of glamour. At least in my head.

  In the heart of this hollow mansion was a lake with the blackest water I’d ever seen. It was more like oil. The building formed a sort-of half-moon shape around the water. A large tree, similar to an oak but gray with black spots all over it, bent over the lake. From the thickest branch was a rope, a harness dangling from the end of it, right above that oily horror.

  Beyond the ruined mansion was a forest, as dark as the water, the tall trees gnarled just like the possible oak tree. That was the way out. Why did escape routes always have to be so damn creepy?

  Now to figure out the escape plan …

  The grass was black, crunching underneath the footsteps of the white eye guy and the priests.

  What do I do? I implored the goddess.

  I do not know. The Celestial …

  Not the time to talk about that!

  There is … a … way … I am seeing the … it is with him … the silent beast … his is the way … he will … I need to see more …

  He’s not here, is he? I have to get out!

  Survive. Live. Seize opportunity. I believe in you. What I have is locked to the silent one … Do not die … The Celestial …

  I was really on my own now. The maker of my own destiny. Hecate had her job to do and I had mine.

  Fuck.

  There was a small wooden pier that extended halfway across the water, ending at the point where that harness dangled.

  How convenient.

  “Now is the time,” Brother Bennett announced from somewhere to my right. “Praise Claec.

  “Praise him,” other voices echoed all around.

  “Right,” the white eye guy said. “Here we go, Jacob.”

  He pulled me along with his magic, my body unable to resist or fight or be nothing more than a willing victim.

  Crap!

  All around the lake, as far as I could see anyway, there were beast priests lined up along the shore. Man, that was some huge priesthood. The crimson stars they wore around their necks were glowing, a bloody ring of five-pointed creepiness around the water.

  “I’ve been dreaming of this moment for so long,” the white eye guy said.

  My mouth was still sealed tight, so I couldn’t come back at him with any sort of retort.

  “We’re quite similar, you and I,” he said. “You’ll soon see why.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  With no effort at all, simply the flicking of hands like a friggin’ conductor, he maneuvered my body to be level with the harness. There was no fear in him, not even with dried blood all down his hairy chin.

  He strapped me in good and tight, bending my arms and legs to his will. The leather straps cut into my skin.

  “The first cut,” he said and sliced my wrists with the glowing red dagger.

  Holy shit, that was a savage slice! An expression of the pain wanted to come out of my magically sealed mouth. He let go and I swung out, away from the pier.

  Seeing as I was face-down, I saw my blood drip into the still water. Every drop left a tiny circle of white light against the dark surface, like luminous rain.

  “Claec,” a collective whisper rippled across the lake.

  Oh, shit.

  It was almost pretty, the sparkling droplets hitting the water. The lake was no longer still, though. From where my blood fell, the water surged, pushing waves of black across the creepy liquid.

  “Claec,” came those whispers again. “He is rising, he rising.” Over and over they chanted on the shore.

  The white eye guy’s power finally let me go, and I could breathe easily again. I kept silent, though. My mouth didn’t need to work—it was my brain that had to move its arse.

  Green light from my healing magic shimmered on the rippling surface of the lake. The bleeding from my wrists stopped.

  The water churned viciously. I tested my restraints for weakness. Nothing. I brought up my shield. It did nothing.

  Bollocks!

  The white eye guy was chuckling from behind me. “Your desperation is entertaining to watch, Jacob.”

  I didn’t answer him.

  The water exploded, drenching me and probably everyone around the lake.

  Dripping, I looked up to see a figure hovering above the churning water. It was a man, skin the color of molten copper, his hair long waves of blood, and his eyes twin coals of evil in a cruel, yet beautiful face. He walked across the water as if it were concrete.

  “Praise Claec! He is risen!”

  I saw them, the priests, from the corner of my eyes. They fell to their knees, good little worshipers.

  “Just like that,” the white eye guy said. “Kind of like Christmas. Fatten you up good—you being the turkey—and then carve you up.”

  “Then carve me if you have the balls to do it.”

  “Oh, Jacob. You’re one clueless prat.”

  I didn’t want to meet Claec, the naked beast who was almost at me. Man, the lake was really going for it like sea meeting a storm. The thrashing waves got me with their dark spray over and over again.

  Claec was all muscle and brute strength, and he’d finally closed the distance between us.

  “This is the weapon,” he said. His voice was a cold thrum of power.

  “Yes, My King!” the beast priests responded together.

  Claec cocked his head at me. “Intriguing specimen.”

  “Nice hair,” I responded. Well, it was true.

  Why the hell couldn’t I keep my bloody mouth shut?

  His dark eyes fell on my sparking hands, strapped to my sides. “The source of the weapon’s power.”

  “Yes, My King,” the in-sync voices replied.

  “And yo
u,” he pointed behind me, “are to thank for bringing the weapon to this cursed place, for keeping him alive long enough for this glorious occasion to come to pass. I thank you for all of your efforts.”

  “Or course, King Claec.”

  His attention came back to me. “It took the blood of the weapon to free the true ruler of the beast realm. Lilisian could never have imagined such a thing when she put this curse upon me.”

  “She wasn’t too happy when she found out,” the white eye guy responded.

  “She has failed in her curse, and she has failed in killing the weapon.” He moved in closer. “I am grateful to your existence, to the goddess Hecate for blessing you with divine blood. But you are an instrument of death to my kind. You will undo us. I cannot suffer you to live.”

  Lilisian wanted me dead and this bloke wanted me alive so he could come back and overthrow her. But now he wanted me dead too. Same endgame when it came down to it. Still didn’t answer why the white eye guy was involved!

  “Same to you,” I replied.

  He sniffed the air. “Courage, fear, and is that determination? None of them matter when you are in the position you now find yourself in. It is time to die.”

  Magic yanked the restraints open.

  What the hell?

  Before I could think, or even blink, I was flying at Claec with my arms outstretched—not my doing.

  My sparking hands connected with Claec’s head, and I was sucked into the place of fog.

  Chapter Twenty

  Oh. My. God.

  The white eye guy! That sneaky bastard! He’d done this, sent me hurtling at Claec like the fucking puppet I was for him.

  “What the bloody hell is going on?” I yelled. Stupid really seeing as there was no one to yell at in here apart from fog and beast essence. “Fuck this!”

  I charged at the golden diamond light.

  This was so friggin’ weird. There was me thinking that Claec was gonna be another super big bad beast, not only him and Lilisian going to war with each other, but both baying for my blood.

  The beast’s essence spun, alarmed by my presence.

  Who knew I’d be at this point already?

  This was the time to have a showdown with the white eye guy. I wanted answers and then his head removed from his fucking neck!

  I destroyed the beast essence.

  I hit the water, going under. Holy. Shit. The wave of pleasure was like nothing that’d come before it. Every inch of me was ablaze with so much pleasure that I ejaculated in my jeans, body thrashing in the dark water as my throbbing cock spurted again and again and again. I cried out, voice muffled, clawing at my clothes. I needed sex, rough sex, to be taken right here, right now. No, not here. Dragged away to a tree and thrown up against it, my brains fucked out and then fucked out some more. No! I would fuck both our brains out. Where was the fae man and his delicious cock? Where the fuck was he? I wanted that tree bark against my face, his hands clawing at my flesh.

  Sex, power … it coursed through my veins. I never wanted to come down from this high, to feel no other sensations but these.

  Break free of the water …

  Bam! Just like that, the voice of Hecate slapped me out of it.

  Yep, I had to surface or drown having multiple orgasms in a dark lake. Coming hands-free was one for the curriculum vitae of life, I guess.

  I kicked my legs and broke the surface, sucking in the air. The beast priests were howling for the blood of the traitor.

  I was at the heart of the lake. Bollocks!

  There he was, swimming toward me—my nemesis.

  “I don’t think so!” I yelled.

  I went to swim for shore, prepared to take down every one of those priests and get the hell out of here. But he grabbed me with his magic, despite the distraction of swimming. It was the advantage he needed to drive that fucking dagger into my chest again.

  “I will have what I want,” he snarled and pulled me into the depths with him.

  Power leached out of me, through the knife and into him. The inky water was alive with swirling tendrils of light, power pulsing down the blade, down his arm, his heart glowing white through his clothes. My veins were filled with lava, my head ready to go pop, my own heart screaming at the invasion of the steel.

  Oh, fuck!

  No! the goddess screamed in my head.

  The white eye guy’s face and body were contorting, changing, lit up by the dancing light. The bastard was … transforming. His skin was turning olive, that white eye of his shifting to brown, the beard disappearing, he was … so familiar.

  No! Hecate screamed again.

  The white eye guy was getting younger. His patch was gone. There was another brown eye there.

  This wasn’t happening.

  He pulled the knife out of me, and the water was robbed of light.

  I floated in the dark. There was a hole in me somewhere. Not the stab wound, but a magical void. What had he taken? Had he taken something? My power had healed me but hadn’t filled that hole. Nevertheless, it’d given me enough energy to kick with all my might back to the surface.

  “Hercules,” I gasped as I broke through the water. The white eye guy was my ancestor? What the fuck?

  He was treading water in front of me, pushing his messy black hair back from his face.

  He is returned … the goddess whispered.

  “How the hell is this possible?”

  The priests were incensed, in chaos all around us.

  “How do men like us truly die, Jacob?” Hercules replied. His voice was the same, gravelly but with a sharper tone than before.

  More healing magic coursed through me, allowing me to tread water better.

  “What have you done to me?” I demanded.

  “How do we truly die when we have had the blood of gods in our veins?”

  “You’re really Hercules? You’ve been disguised all this time? What the hell?” This couldn’t be real!

  I couldn’t stay in the lake. I had to … A pale, ghostly figure lurked on the shore to my right—the shore closest to the forest.

  “We are brothers now, Jacob. Joined to her. The blood of power is in me once again. I have taken from you and from Claec while he still swam inside you. He was a prick.”

  “Don’t ever call me your brother.”

  What the hell was that waving at me? A ghost? There was too much for my head to bloody take in.

  Hecate? What the—

  You don’t need to ask her, Hercules said in my head.

  I nearly went under again. “No way.”

  “What did I just tell you? We’re joined, Jacob.”

  Joined … the goddess agreed.

  “This can’t be happening.”

  “It is. I’m joining the fight.”

  “What? No fucking way are you?”

  Brother Bennett was yelling something from the pier. I couldn’t make it out.

  “I can’t wander the realms of the dead anymore, abandoned by her.” Hercules spat out that last word. “She left me to my grief.”

  You refused me …

  “Fuck you!” he bellowed. “You’ve no idea what it’s like! No idea how it feels to be alone and lost.”

  You asked me to leave you be, that you did not want the trappings of love in death as you had suffered them in life. I gave you a choice …

  “I was broken, you bitch!”

  You—

  “You should have stopped me from myself!” He thrashed in the water. “But now I’m back. I was made by you, Hecate. I clawed my way to a necromancer, and he brought me into the world as that white-eyed creature, giving me so much power from the blood of murdered witches. Ugliness and one eye was the price to pay for the gifts I have. And now I have more, your blood once again, and the blood of Claec. It feels so good, that ancient beast essence.” He smirked. “I’ll fight with my brother here, help him take down Lilisian and then you will give me Calix as a reward, or the world will suffer at my hands.”

  “
No way,” I jumped in, my head spinning with the info. “Dream on, Herc.”

  He smiled at me. “We’ll see, brother. We’ll see.”

  With that he swam for shore in the opposite direction to the ghost-thing that was still desperately trying to get my attention.

  I had a choice. Tread water and ponder, or swim like crazy while the priests converged on Hercules and make a break for it.

  Hercules was the white eye guy …

  I swam like mad, as fast as I could.

  He has taken the shield … Hecate said.

  What? No way!

  The only power he has taken …

  What other upgrades did he have seeing as he’d snacked on Claec?

  I was almost to shore, the ghost figure jumping about frantically.

  Can he kill beasts now too?

  He is listening …

  I am, Jacob, Hercules joined in. And the answer is no. You’re still the star of the beast-killing show. We are going to make a great team.

  The goddess fell silent as I met the shallows, running through the water.

  I froze. The figure was … he was … he looked like …

  “Luke?”

  It couldn’t be.

  Matted blonde hair, green eyes, sun-kissed skin like a surfer, naked as he always was. But he wasn’t solid, very much spectral.

  “Luke!”

  “Jake. You must follow me right now.”

  “It’s … It’s you.”

  I couldn’t take much more of this! But it was him, my dead beast friend who could be a man and a cat. There were ghosts in the beast realm.

  Man, my brain!

  “Luke! It really is you!”

  “We have to go, Jake! They are coming.”

  I threw a glance over my shoulder. Beast priests came running, baying for my blood. Brother Bennett was leading this spin-off group.

  Run … Hercules said.

  “Come on!” the ghost that was Luke yelled.

  I didn’t need telling again. With as much haste as I could muster, I ran for the forest with certain death hot on my trail.

  This would not be the place I died. No way, not now. The endgame was on the horizon. I’d fix this mess, get back to my guardians, save Dean and fight for the future of humankind. War was coming, the battle to end all battles. The days of the beast curse on Coldharbour were numbered.