Claimed by Sin: an Urban Fantasy Novel (The Gatekeeper Chronicles Book 3)

by Jasmine Walt

  “Mitch, please tell me you haven’t given up smoking.”

  Mitch winced. “Yeah, I was planning on quitting next week, but with the end of the world and all that around the corner, I thought…”

  Parker chuckled. “You got your lighter?”

  He nodded.

  “Hand it over. I have an idea.”

  Mitch fumbled in his pocket and passed her the silver gas lighter.

  Melody walked across the room and stood under the smoke detector. “Hey. Give me a boost?”

  Mitch lifted her up and she flicked open the lighter, holding it under the detector. Seconds passed and nothing happened. Maybe the batteries were dead? Or maybe the system had been disconnected? Fuck.

  “Good idea, Parker, but—”

  A shrill alarm filled the room, and the amber light switched to a red glow. Mitch lowered her to her feet just as the ground began to vibrate. An earthquake? No…not a quake. It was the chimeras running down the corridor.

  “Now.”

  Parker rushed to the door and opened it a crack. “Wait here.” She slid out of the room and headed down the corridor as fast as she could. Taking a couple of breaths to prepare herself, she peered around the corner.

  The chimeras were gone.

  She gave the signal for her men to follow.

  There wasn’t much time. The chimeras would investigate, realize there was no fire, and be back at their posts any second. The door to the lab was locked. Entrance by palm panel only.

  Harry got to work, pulling it open and doing some tech shit with the wires.

  Come on, come on, come on.

  “Almost got it,” Harry said.

  The ground began to tremble.

  Shit. “Harry, it’s now or never.”

  The chimeras came barreling around the corner, their armored torsos gleaming in the red emergency lights.

  “We have company,” Mitch warned.

  The door beeped and slid open. They were in. Harry slammed his hand on the huge silver button on the inside, and the doors began to close. The chimeras were almost there, but they wouldn’t make it before the doors locked them out. Hope expanded in her chest.

  “Melody, watch out!”

  She saw the sharp metal javelin too late. It whizzed through the slender gap in the door, embedding itself in her abdomen. The entrance sealed itself shut, and the chimeras slammed into the doors from beyond.

  The pain… Where was the… Ah, there it was. The world swayed, and Mitch caught her.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” His hands hovered over the metal piercing her.

  “Leave it. Don’t. I’ll bleed out. Just get the switch.”

  The reinforced steel doors shuddered under the impact of the chimeras’ assault.

  “Harry, find the fucking switch and shut this down,” Mitch ordered.

  “Um… sir. I…I don’t know…”

  “Help me up.”

  Mitch shook his head. “Parker?”

  He’d called her Melody a moment ago; he never did that. Focus, dammit. “Help me up. That’s an order, operative.”

  Mitch pressed his lips together and gently guided her to her feet. Taking shallow, quick breaths through the pain, she walked toward the control panel.

  “What the fuck?” Mitch said.

  Rows upon rows of green buttons covered the console.

  That fucker Vincent had failed to disclose something else. There wasn’t one kill switch… There was one for every creature.

  29

  There was only darkness. Nothingness enveloped me, cocooning me in its welcome embrace. There was no fear, no anxiety, and no urgency. Only the forever promise of comfort. Wait…there was something important that needed to be done. A task in need of completion?

  It no longer mattered.

  I was free.

  Free.

  Then why couldn’t I move? Why couldn’t I see? There had been light once: faces, voices, smells, and his touch, like fire across my skin.

  Fire.

  A forever promise of my own.

  Garuda.

  The Daughter of Chaos…the void!

  My inner eye snapped open, and the world was flooded with illumination. Glorious, warm, buttery light infused my limbs, sucking me out of the nothingness and spitting me onto soft grass.

  The scent of honeysuckle and roses filled my nostrils, tugging at memories of a time long past. Memories that were mine and yet not mine.

  “Hello, Malina.”

  I lifted my head from the fresh green grass and looked into my own face.

  “I’m glad you’ve decided to join us,” the woman with my face said.

  An alternate? No. I was inside Velocity’s mind…this was a trick, an illusion of some sort.

  My doppelganger laughed. It was an indulgent sound, almost amused. “You understand so little.” She held out her hand. “Come, walk with me and I’ll try to explain it.”

  This was weird, but I was here now—wherever here was—and there was nothing else to do but see this through. Maybe this duplicate could lead me to the Daughter of Chaos. I took her hand and allowed her to pull me to my feet.

  She smiled, looking me over. “I’m always astounded at how hot I actually am. I mean, looking in a mirror doesn’t give the full effect, but like this…looking at you, the exact replica of me…yeah, wow. I am seriously gorgeous.”

  “Vain much?”

  She snorted and rolled her eyes, the mannerism so like mine that it made my stomach turn with unease.

  “Come on. I’ll show you my new digs.”

  We began our walk, slow and casual through the late afternoon garden. The twitter of birds and the scratch of small animals going about their daily business was the only sound.

  I had to ask. “What is this place?”

  “This?” My doppelganger looked about as if seeing the garden for the first time. “This is the Garden of Eternity.”

  Velocity’s song…

  “This is home, Malina.”

  A narrow, cobbled path appeared, and my duplicate led me onto it.

  “At the end of this path is where we’ll reside.” Her pace quickened. “Not long now.” Her voice trembled, not in fear but in…excitement?

  My gut squirmed. “Wait.”

  She stopped, her shoulders tensing under the robe. “All your questions will be answered once we reach the cottage.” She turned to me with a smile. But was that an edge of steel in her eyes?

  My hand went to my waist, but the reassuring weight of Vindra’s sheath was gone. She tracked my movement, her lips curling almost imperceptibly.

  Her eyes widened. A gesture of exaggerated innocence. “You won’t be needing weapons here, Malina. We won’t hurt you. There is only peace here. Forever.”

  I stood my ground. “What is this place?”

  She stuck out her bottom lip in thought.

  “Answer me!”

  The brush to my left rustled, and a figure stepped onto the path. “I’ll tell you what it is.”

  I stared at the woman—gaunt and bony and not headless despite what I’d seen. “Malina?”

  The Malina who’d been killed by Malfor nodded, her eyes on our other doppelganger. “Back away from her, Malina.”

  Wait. Was she addressing me? I was so confused.

  She waved me over. “Now.”

  The robed Malina held up her hands. “Don’t listen to her. She’s dangerous. She’s not who you think she is. You can’t trust her.”

  The Malina behind me smiled thinly. “Is Sarani safe?”

  The robed figure frowned, her eyes clouding. She had no idea what this Malina was talking about. But I did.

  I made my decision and walked up to my not-so-headless alternate. “She’s safe. What’s going on here?”

  “A recruitment.”

  “Shut up!” the robed Malina said.

  My alternate ignored her and continued, “All alternates who have been killed have ended up here. I was killed by Malfor, but you were right—he was
infected by the void, and so my soul awoke here. There are those of us who give in and join her, and those who are fighting, because the Daughter of Chaos needs us, Malina. She needs our souls. I just haven’t figured out why yet, so you need to fight it.”

  The robed Malina blew out an exasperated breath. “Fight? For what? We’re fucking dead, if you hadn’t noticed. What is there left to fight for? Everything we valued, everyone we loved, is gone. The cottage is peace. I choose peace.” She glared at me. “You want to go with her? Then go. But you’re making a mistake. There’s nothing but torment for those of us who choose to fight.” She turned on her heal and strode down the path, which vanished in her wake.

  My alternate sagged in relief. “How’d it happen?”

  “What?”

  “How’d you die? How did the Daughter of Chaos get you?”

  “I didn’t. I mean, I haven’t.”

  “Then how the heck are you here?”

  “I really don’t know. I came looking for the Daughter of Chaos.”

  “Well, that I can help you with.”

  She led me back the way we’d come.

  “Was that Malina an alternate?”

  “Yes. There are many of us here. All killed by agents of the void. I’ve been trying to piece it together to understand why we’re so important, but all I can come up with is that we have something she…it wants.”

  “The power of the seal?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure. Some of the alternates have mature heirs and passed on their power upon death, so she definitely doesn’t have every seal’s power.”

  “How could any of us have mature offspring?”

  “Time moves differently between realities. I know that now. Being here teaches you things. It unwraps the pretty parcel of knowledge. Some Malinas lived to old age before passing, and some are only children.”

  “My brain can’t handle this.”

  “You don’t need to. Not yet. This place…it’s not where we’re supposed to be. There is another place beyond that which we know—a place where we can truly rest. I believe you’re the last of us, Malina. As we speak, the others are being drawn here. You’re the only one who can free us.” She came to a standstill. “There is your doorway.”

  I followed her gaze to see a crack in reality, inky black and forbidding.

  “I think…I think I just came from there.”

  She snorted. “Makes sense. If you’re alive, you have the edge in that slice of the void. She probably hoped that the Malinas in the cottage would finish you off. She’s in there, all right. I can feel it.”

  “Why can’t I?”

  “Because you’re alive. You’re not connected to this place. Not like I am. Stay alive, Malina, our baby needs you.”

  With a final glance at my brave alternate, I stepped through the crack.

  Nothingness enveloped me, cocooning me in its welcome embrace. There was no fear, no anxiety, no urgency, only the forever promise of comfort. Wait. There was something…something important that needed to be done. There was a task in need of completion and a really strong case of déjà vu.

  Wait!

  The garden, and the robed alternate, and then…yes. Get it together, Malina. You have an evil entity to find.

  “Evil? Is that what you think I am?”

  I sat up as the darkness turned to gloom. Weak light swept over me, coming to a halt overhead. A figure walked into the circle of light.

  The Daughter of Chaos stood tall and regal, her golden hair dangling in a neat plait down her back. Her body was encased in a white flowing dress, and her feet were bare. She looked the image of innocence and purity, and it made me sick.

  “You should have gone to the cottage with the others,” she said. “Your death would have been quick.”

  I should just blast her with the seal’s power now. Get it over with. But I needed to know. I needed to understand. “What is your obsession with killing me? You have what you want. The gate is open, and your doorway is almost complete. So why are you wasting your time on me?”

  She snorted in disbelief. “You really haven’t figured it out, have you?”

  “Um, if I had, I wouldn’t be asking.”

  “Did you know your mother was pregnant with you before she relinquished her nagamuni?”

  I hadn’t, but… “So?”

  “Do you know what that means?”

  “No, but I guess you’re going to tell me.”

  She smiled indulgently. “It means that even though your body is bound by the laws of the multi-verse, your soul is not. It means your soul is the anchor for all your alternates’ souls.”

  I had no idea what that meant. “Why are you collecting them? Why do you want my alternates’ souls?”

  “I don’t want them. I couldn’t care less about them. What I want is you. Your soul. Free of that infernal body that is tied to the multi-verse. Imagine the multi-verse as a huge piece of fabric, intricate and tightly woven. To unravel it, I would need to find a loose stitch. Your existence is that loose stitch—the loophole in the laws of the multi-verse that I need to begin my unraveling. With your soul as my needle, I can pick it all apart. Not just your world, but the whole convoluted creation that is the multi-verse. Your alternates’ souls are connected to yours, and most of them belong to me, which means you almost belong to me.”

  “I don’t get why you want to destroy everything. I understand you’re the void, emptiness and all that, but you have form now. You can choose to do something different with your existence. Forge a new path. Find a new purpose.”

  “A lioness hunts, a zebra will always have stripes, and the void is the absence of creation. I am the void, and I will be free.”

  “But you are free. You saw to that when you manipulated me into killing all those innocent children. You cracked the seal and forced open the gates of the underworld.”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “Only a fraction of my essence was trapped there. The rest lies beyond, shackled to all this creation. I will never be truly free until I unwind it all. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  She arched a brow and pursed her lips, as if considering it. Something flashed across her face, a strange expression of longing bordering on nostalgia. “At one time, I was nothingness, serene and content, and then creation swept through me, needling, probing, and taking. We fought, and for the first time, there was light within my darkness—blinding and strange. It was pain and discomfort.” Her eyes glazed over as she cast her mind back. “Soon, I was the stars, the millions of suns, and the dark matter that floats in space. I begged to be left alone. To be free of these shackles that were being imposed on me, but creation was relentless, using my energy, and weaving, forever weaving, until a huge explosion of light shattered me into a million pieces, and the multi-verse was born.”

  Her expression twisted into a mask of agony. “I have been manipulated, harnessed, and abused. Tormented and molded and forced to birth again and again since the beginning of time, and now I am on the cusp of finally claiming back everything that was mine. Every atom will be unraveled until I am whole once again—free and at rest, as was meant to be.”

  Was she talking about the Big Bang? Had the void been what came before creation? Kosmos had said the void was the antitheses of creation, but from what she was saying it sounded like she’d been minding her own business when creation had accosted her. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I wasn’t supposed to be feeling sorry for her. She was evil…right?

  She sighed. “I waited for so long. The only truly conscious part of me was trapped in a divine form, anchored to your world. But the vast engine was alive, awake, and powering a million worlds scattered across time and space. I waited for a sign, a loophole in the ultimate fabric of creation, and then, like a burning torch in the ever darkness, there you were—my salvation.”

  “With you in the palm of my hand, I will finally be free of the obligations forced upon me. I will shuck off the million childr
en suckling at my breast—these worlds I was forced to birth that take and destroy.” Her eyes narrowed. “Your soul is bound by no rules. Give it to me willingly, and I promise there will be no pain.”

  “No.”

  Her faced contorted, part anger and part anguish. Shadows pressed against the circle of light.

  “What’s happening?”

  “It’s time for you to die, Malina.”

  “You can’t kill me. My body isn’t even here.”

  She smiled, a viciously hungry smile. “But your soul is…”

  “What—”

  Air whooshed out of my lungs as pain contorted my body into an impossible helix. She couldn’t kill me. She wasn’t a naga or Garuda. The pain couldn’t kill me.

  Through a haze of tears, I caught her smile—eager and euphoric.

  “I can’t kill you, but I can claim your soul. I have the souls of your alternates, the majority of whom are sympathetic to my plight, and they’re eager to influence you, their anchor, and break the tether that binds you to your body. And we all know that majority vote rules.”

  No. She couldn’t…it wasn’t possible. My neck craned backward, forcing my mouth open. Figures emerged from the darkness. So many versions of me. A multitude of amber eyes fixed on my body, eager to meld with my soul.

  No…please…

  The first one slammed into me, and my mind was no longer my own.

  30

  Parker

  The door shuddered as the chimeras slammed into it from the other side. A huge bulge formed in it, and the panel began to beep. Any second now, those doors were gonna blow.

  “Faster!” Parker flipped switches, turning them red.

  Harry and Mitch worked at her sides.

  “Two of these have got to belong to the chimeras,” Mitch said through gritted teeth, punching switches so fast his hands were a blur.

  The world was going dark at the edges, but the pain was gone—a cold numbness seeping through her in its place. This was bad. Real bad.