The Divine Roses (Jake & Dean Investigations Book 3)

by Richard Amos

  What? Save it once before?

  “Alas, you’re selfish and corrupt. There is no forgiveness for you. I hope the flames hurt.”

  I’d encountered some unhinged arseholes in my time, but this bloke really took the biscuit and smashed it into a million pieces.

  Dam Square. Outside Royal Palace.

  The dark building had no pod worms running through it yet, only two purple pods. A structure had been built in front of it—a massive pyre, ready for me, made of wood and books, and whatever else went up well. My head was flopped at a right angle to drink it all in as the thunder boomed ominously, carrying on without the rain.

  There were people gathered in a circle around the pyre holding candles. No pole to strap me to? Wasn’t that the way burnings were supposed to go down? The damned (me) tied to a pole, and then all the crap at the bottom set alight. Done. Watch things get toasty.

  Circumstances were different here. I was pod. The sleigh was wooden.

  My questions were being answered as I went along, dragged over to the pyre, then up onto the top of the mound.

  Too infected to tie to a pole.

  “There,” Elijah said. Couldn’t see him—not that I was complaining. “Now, you’re ready.” I heard him move away.

  This was it.

  I’m sorry, Lou.

  I’m sorry, Dean.

  I don’t know what to do. There’s no way out.

  Two faces appeared in my eyeline.

  The Ricci Twins.

  “Time to die!” Elena screeched.

  “We told you! We told you!” Emilio added.

  “Mother will be so proud.”

  “And avenged.” Emilio loomed in closer. “Nothing but pain for you now.” He stepped back, and the pair of them laughed their heads off.

  Shame that wasn’t literally laughing their skulls from their necks.

  I was expecting Izzie, but she didn’t put in an appearance to come and add to the Ricci bollocks.

  After about a half-minute of listening to that laughing, they were gone from my sight. My eyes were grateful.

  I sent a silent prayer for Lou to be safe with Soph and Luuk, for Dean, for all my friends and family. Let them live. Let me get out of this shit alive.

  “Friends!” Elijah bellowed. “Time is of the essence.” Thunderclaps punctuated his words. “We gather here on our consecrated ground on the Spring Equinox—God’s chosen day. Finally, we are here to burn away the rot that is Jake Winter. Prepare for a new dawn!” Cheers went up. “Let us not delay. The pod is inching closer, the so-called Divine Roses hungry for destruction.”

  One flew over as if hearing him, droplets of red splashing from the rose. Fuck knows where it landed, but a few people yelled.

  “Now! Burn him! Ignite the pyre with your flames! Let us end this!”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw the people come forward and toss their candles.

  Man, this really was it.

  Fuck.

  Let it be bloody quick!

  They started singing.

  Insane! They were all fucking crackers!

  A crackle, a glow of fire. Yeah, it was really happening.

  This was wrong, though. All this was gonna do was fry me, not clear the world of pods, and it definitely wasn’t about to make supernatural creatures go away, for magic to fall. That’s not how it worked, and that wasn’t how God worked—if you believed in a higher power. I sat on the fence, but to me, if there was a supreme being in charge, they wouldn’t endorse this kind of hate. I just refused to accept that.

  But it didn’t matter what I thought now. I was doomed. Death by fire or death by pod, and I knew which direction I was heading in.

  The singing went on, Elijah’s voice the loudest, the glow of the fire getting brighter. Soon I’d be that glow, that brightest star on the friggin’ tree.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Was that Brem’s voice?

  “I’d like to second that.”

  Dylan Rivers?

  “Get away from here!” Elijah roared. “You will not break the dawn!”

  “Hun, that’s exactly what we’re going to be doing,” Dylan countered.

  “Yeah!”

  Sonny? What the frig?

  “Don’t let them live!”

  Something heavy hit the sleigh, jangling.

  Chains.

  Everything went crazy after that.

  Twenty-Nine

  Dylan Rivers

  A vampire with his arm around a woman stood with us as we faced the Conclave.

  Seph made the first move, wrapping his chains around that brown sleigh holding poor Jake. I tried not to be distracted by the mess he had become, riddled with pod, unrecognizable.

  Destroy first. Take care of him later.

  The kelpie dragged the sleigh out of the fire, and I called upon my song to enchant, my companions surging forward to meet the charge of the Conclave as my song rose. This use of power would give me the worst hangover tomorrow. Using the song always did, and always would. I didn’t have to use it so much these days.

  It would be worth it, though.

  I took pleasure in Seph snapping the neck of a charging man as he dragged Jake out of the fray, enjoyed witnessing the vampire tearing into the neck of a vicious woman who tried to attack him with a knife. The woman he’d had his arm around was right behind him, her own blade held high in a trembling hand.

  Pranay shifted into the black wolf, protecting me, with Andy beside me too with his throwing stars. No one could or would get close.

  There wasn’t much I could do for the city, but I could certainly stop this travesty.

  Golden magic swirled around me in glorious ribbons, drifting towards the people, the melody building to its crescendo. Ready to snare. They couldn’t run. They wouldn’t be allowed to run.

  Their time was done.

  “Dylan Rivers!” Elijah was now Parker. Oh. Interesting. The same body.

  I smiled at the bastard’s cry. “Hello, there.”

  “This is…” He was back to Elijah. “You will not stop this! The world is not yours to corrupt.”

  “Oh, do be quiet.”

  The song was done, now an explosive sound, and the ribbons darted for each member of this foul church who was still breathing.

  Mine.

  They stopped, swaying on their feet, all eyes on me. Huge smiles on their faces, lost in the bliss of my melody.

  The fire had quickly reached full blaze. Thank goodness Jake was safe…from burning to death at least.

  And there was no sign of Elijah/Parker.

  “Hello, everyone,” I said. “You now belong to me.”

  “We love you,” they replied gently together. “We love the siren.”

  “I know you do. Now listen. I want each of you to walk to the fire and throw yourselves in. I want you to burn. Oh, and be sure to drag the bodies of your dead friends with you.”

  This was extreme. I could have them sit and wait to be arrested rather than die. This was slaughter. But who would arrest them? Where would they go and be held? The city was in chaos.

  One by one, the Conclave members did as they were bid. They burned silently, seeing as they were enchanted to do so. Happy to turn to a crisp as their master commanded.

  “The entire Conclave will burn now,” I whispered. “This is only the beginning.”

  Thirty

  Dean

  Dad led me through corridors where pod leaked through the ceiling. It became an obstacle course—jumping out of the way with split-second reactions, side-stepping a swollen red blob.

  “Son!”

  A crack split the corridor in two, dividing us. Liquid red spilled over the sides, rushing towards me, towards him. The moment it touched my boots, I’d be tainted.

  I wouldn’t give it a chance.

  Backing up, I burst into a run, making a leap at the last moment, grabbing the elaborate light fixture above my head—one made of jagged edges and curved, amber-tinged
glass. It strained under my weight, squeaked as I built up enough of a swing to get me over the danger filling up the hallway.

  “Dean!”

  What was Dad doing acting like he cared if I got out? He was part of this, complicit in harming Louise. Because that’s what it was. Harmful. He was supposed to be her grandfather, but what’d I expected? Miracles? Evander Gold was always one thing overall—a selfish prick.

  Hate later. Fight now.

  With enough momentum, I released and landed in a forward roll just beyond the liquid pod. Not stopping, I ran, Dad keeping up.

  “Left!” he instructed.

  So we went left and carried on navigating the corridors, waiting for a rose woman to spring out and unleash pod on us. Thunder kept cracking, the foundations of the palace trembling.

  It was the end of the world.

  Finally, we came to another large stable with no ceiling. The roof had been torn off, and all but two of the stalls were empty. One with a terrified horse, the other with a dead one covered in the shimmering boils that were red pods.

  The living, white horse was saddled up, two dead guards on the ground outside its stall twitching, clearly preparing to get out there.

  “I thought this would be the best stable,” Dad said.

  Through the broken wooden doors leading outside, the view wasn’t the sea but an expanse of the autumn lands stretching further east.

  One of the guards groaned and pushed himself onto his knees. His head split down the middle, revealing a mass of glowing red inside—no brain or bone in sight.

  The red mass slid upward, changing shape outside of the gap in the head, rippling into what looked to be a clawed hand.

  Dad had the sword now. He drove it into the man’s heart first, then sliced through his neck.

  “To be safe,” he said, then stabbed the unmoving man several times before he took the guard’s head off too.

  Not the place to worry about overkill.

  “Get down!” Dad hissed.

  We dropped as two rose women flew overhead, dripping more red. It struck the hay bales and the ground a few feet away from me.

  “If it hits that horse, there’s no way out,” he said. “We need to go now. It’ll fly, but we have to be quick and careful.”

  How fast did the rose women fly compared to the horse? There was only one way to find out, and only once shot at this.

  It started to rain. Not heavy, more of an annoying light drizzle. But those storm clouds were thickening, darkening, and the thunder and red lightning wasn’t relenting.

  This would spread across Faerie and was probably doing the same back home.

  I needed to get back to my family. I had the vial with Louise’s essence. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed my dad to come with me. If what Orla had said was true, yet again, I needed to call upon his help.

  “On the horse,” I ordered.

  The horse was resistant at first. I completely understood its terror, its helplessness being trapped in the stall. But part of my power was to soothe, to manipulate emotion, and ease suffering. Mainly on humans. Hadn’t used it on a horse in a long while. It did work, though, and the creature was soon happy enough to take both our weight in the saddle.

  I took the reins, my dad holding onto me. My flesh crawled at his presence. Thousands of feet would be too close, never mind sharing a horse.

  Endure it for now…

  At me snapping the reins, the horse charged, pounding the hay-strew ground to the other end of the stable. It scraped a hoof across the ground, then shot forward in takeoff, gaining height as soon as its hooves met the air.

  As soon as we were out in the open, we got the attention I’d been expecting.

  “Come on!” I commanded, lowering myself forward.

  The rose women came up alongside us, silent, two on either side. That was the creepiest thing about them. Usually, the creatures we faced would shriek or make some noise. Even if it was just a grunt. These didn’t make a single sound. Their facial expressions were fixed, glacial death, and I was sure they didn’t blink.

  Machines of destruction. Perfect vessels to destroy, to spread chaos. It reeked of Parker Smith. That’s exactly what he liked to do.

  Another tore upward, cutting us off.

  I’d ridden horses before in my youth. It’d been a while, but it all came back to me in an instant as if I’d never been out of the loop. Plus, this horse was incredibly intuitive. A symbiotic relationship was forming with each passing second. The two of us connected in the desperation to get out of here.

  Dad held on tight as the horse picked up even more speed, shot downward, the ground rising up quick. The rose women followed, and the horse went back up, me encouraging every move, being the eyes when the rose women moved in for the attack.

  The trick was to keep above them, which wasn’t so easy when there were now six of them coming at us from all directions.

  So many near misses, so many hairpin turns. Distance gained, distance lost when we had to double back and go up to get clear.

  It was too risky to use the sword at the speed we were going.

  Both hands inside the car, please. Hold on tight because here comes the big dipper.

  My stomach lurched as we made another vertical plunge. That really was something else. Frightening, kind of thrilling. There was so much adrenaline spiking inside me I was overwhelmed. Still, it was a keeping me going through the terror, fueling my determination.

  Dad and I didn’t have fae power with bangs and booms. Our skills would be useless on the rose women. Speed was all we had.

  The horse was faster than our chasers, but there were more of them, and they had pod to leak. The risk of getting sprayed was slowing us down, hindering us from getting a straight flight path to the portal.

  “Hold out for me,” I whispered to the horse. Soothing. Reassuring. “Don’t give up.”

  If it did, it was goodnight.

  “We’re almost there,” I said more to myself than Dad or the horse.

  After an eternity of ducking and diving, plunging and soaring, we’d evaded the rose women and got close to the same portal I’d been taken into Faerie through.

  I’m coming, Louise.

  I’m coming, baby.

  The final stretch. One more charge and—

  When the single rose woman popped up into our trajectory, there wasn’t enough time to get out of the way. The horse crashed into her, shrieking as it spun out of control, plummeting to the ground in a frenzy of spinning as I held on for dear life, my dad’s fingers digging into my sides.

  Thirty-One

  Jake

  Fading.

  Life slipping through my fingers.

  Not moving.

  Fading.

  Voices telling me to hold on. Be strong. Help was coming.

  No help.

  Fading.

  No cure.

  Fading.

  Grip on life weak.

  Fading.

  Didn’t want this. Had too much life to live.

  Fading.

  Life wasn’t mine anymore. Nope. Stolen. Taken away. Not mine.

  Fading.

  Dying.

  Dying…

  Thirty-Two

  Dean

  The horse gained its footing on the ground with a heavy landing and charged forward. Didn’t collapse, tumble, or throw us. Finally, I could breathe again after spinning towards the ground, holding on for dear life, my life flashing before my eyes, hoping fate would smile down on us.

  Once again, she had.

  No time to take it all in. The horse launched back into the air, tearing through the shimmering air that was the portal back to Earth as the rose women continued their pursuit. They wouldn’t stop until we shook them.

  “Come on!” I cried. “Let’s lose these things!”

  The portal spat us out on the Earth side, into the skies of Amsterdam.

  Home.

  Our pursuers hadn’t followed from what I could see, bu
t there were more here, raining pod down on the city.

  Screams, noises from nightmares, and a whole load of horror drifted up to my ears along with the constant crack of the thunder. The heavy rain had stopped, but that deluge had been nothing in comparison to the devastation I was looking down on.

  My breath caught in my chest again.

  Amsterdam. Not my city anymore. The canals were scarlet, the buildings covered in red fissures, smoke rising from various points.

  The Divine Roses had taken over.

  Pod was everywhere.

  “Oh, God.”

  The horse swept across the city, me steering her in the direction of the hospital. But I could see from my position what’d become of it.

  Rubble. Burning. Sitting in a lake of red.

  “Louise… Jake…”

  No. They weren’t in there. Jake would’ve got her and himself out somewhere safe.

  I headed for our house, which was smothered in red, as was Sophie and Luuk’s. My heart was about to shatter. It would’ve if I let it, but I denied it. Of course, they wouldn’t be in the house. Not with this going on. I gave Jake so much more credit than that. He was strong and capable and enterprising. Now I had to follow him, track him down—or even find a phone. Mine was gone. Chances of finding one or making contact right now were zero.

  You have to think better than that!

  We swept over Jake & Dean Investigations, where pod-born ran up and down the canal paths. People with swollen heads hurried along. One woman had been turned into a half-snail creature with those thin tentacle eyes and a shell on her back, but still with legs. A man with a crow’s head was chasing her.

  How was this going to be put right?

  Dead Jake and Louise, their bodies broken, twisted, rotting. Drowning in pods. Burned. Dead. The loves of my life dead. Gone. Failed.

  I slumped forward as my mind was overcome with grief, flashing those torturous images at me. Hope began to drain away because of my fucked-up imagination, the crippling taint I couldn’t quite escape.