Edge of Forever (The Soul Eater Book 6)

by Pippa Dacosta

  New York would have its beating heart once more. But I wouldn’t be here to see it.

  “You could stay,” Shukra said, emerging from the doorway behind me. A smudge of dirt marked her cheek, and her clothes were all scratched up. She had said she liked the apocalyptic look.

  I let her have some of my smile. “Cujo?”

  “He’s okay. Still angry Osiris snatched Chuck from under his nose.”

  I stared at the burned-out shell of a car and my Ducati—recovered that morning from where I’d abandoned it after handing Nile over to Seth. Turns out the god’s sands hadn’t wanted it. My thoughts wandered, and I wondered if the distant howls were jackals or just my imagination. “Do you think they’re really gone?”

  “For now. For how long? Weeks, centuries, millennia… that remains to be seen.”

  I let my thoughts trail off and lifted my face to the sun, soaking up its warmth. Shukra was watching me, her lips turned down. I would miss her too.

  “The kids seem to be okay,” she mused.

  “The trap would have siphoned off their power and funneled it into the sword, but keep an eye on them and Alysdair.”

  “You really don’t want the sword back? Don’t you think it would be safer—”

  I shook my head. “The temptation would be too great.” The sword was the new secret box, but instead of Apophis’s memories, Alysdair held all the gods and all their power. “Its secret must never be revealed. Just you and I know, Shu, for as long as we live.”

  Shu nodded and shoved her hands into her pants pockets.

  A helicopter’s familiar whoop-whoop and the trundle if distant tires drifted on the breeze. Life would find a way without Osiris to manipulate it.

  “Was the illusion convincing?” Shukra asked, referring to her doppelganger spell from the rooftop.

  “If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here.” Like the body-double of Chuck Shukra had created months ago to fool Isis, my double—created by the additional spell markings on the roof—had only needed to distract Osiris during the chaotic final moments. Given that he’d been split between the battle, his desire for the world, and the need to have his wife by his side, he hadn’t realized that Ace Dante had been absent from the grand finale.

  “I couldn’t have done any of this without you,” I told her.

  “Damn right. You’re a mess. And you’re welcome.”

  “You should work on your people skills.”

  A goodbye was close, but I clung on to it. I didn’t want to go. The things we had seen and done together—it had been a long way from perfect, but, absurdly, that made what we had become today so perfectly right.

  “You didn’t think to bring a bottle of vodka?” I asked.

  “It slipped my mind while I was saving your ass.”

  I turned my head and looked at Shukra, really looked at her. The scruffy edges were new, softening her up. This new softness was probably Cujo’s influence. He was good for her. Wouldn’t take any of her shit. “No selling spells online and no concocting potions from body parts.”

  She waggled her fingers. “Can’t. The trap took it all. I’m just a regular Shukra now.”

  It had taken my soul-eater power too, but we couldn’t know for how long or if it would ever return. “There was never anything regular about you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I preferred Apophis. He wasn’t such a sap.”

  I chuckled and swung my leg over the seat and rocked it upright. The ignition button beckoned.

  Shukra sighed. “You don’t have to.”

  “I do.”

  I couldn’t stay, but I would come back. I’d promised Chuck I’d teach her how to wield Alysdair, and these days, I wasn’t into lying. I just needed time to find myself again, to remind myself who I was and who I wasn’t.

  “We need to bury Apophis, Shukra. Bury all the gods deep and tell no one what happened. If we die, we take their secrets with us into the next life. The gods must never be worshipped again.”

  “What gods?”

  I nodded toward the building. “Keep them safe.”

  Shukra settled her hand on my shoulder. “You’ve done enough. We’ll be here when you get back.”

  I swallowed, but the damn knot in my throat wouldn’t clear.

  “You’re a good man, Ace Dante.”

  “Yeah.” I chuckled. “Let’s see how long that lasts.”

  I took one long look at the clear skies, breathed in the fresh air, and started up the bike.

  Shukra’s dark eyes glistened. “You were my worst enemy,” she said, raising her voice over the rumble of the engine. “Now you’re my best friend. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

  She would figure it out. “Goodbye, old friend.”

  “Bye, Ace Dante.”

  I pulled away from the curb, and in the bike’s mirrors, I saw them all emerge from the building. Cat, Chuck, Nile, Cujo. I kicked down a gear and accelerated away. When I looked in the mirrors again, they were gone, lost behind empty buildings, but I caught sight of my reflection, and deep in my eyes where the dark had once churned, something bright and light and precious glinted.

  A smile hooked into my lips.

  I sped out of New York, but I’d be back. The best villains always came back.

  Epilogue

  The ferryman set down his quill and parchment and watched the river of souls journey from the Halls of Judgment to the Twelve Gates. His boat had been empty for days, months, years. He wasn’t sure. Time flowed like the river here, sometimes meandering, other times raging. Since the gods had gone, the torrent of souls had slowed. After eons, he knew that a slow river was a sign of peace. But peace had never lasted, and he wondered how long it could last this time. The Halls were empty, the streets of Duat too, and even the plains of mu moka with its deserted dark tower lay still.

  The ferryman had always been the guardian of the river, but that was not all he had been. Experience told him that change could be… good. He had once fought the Night for the Day, over and over, locked in an eternal battle. Then the gods had risen, and the sundering had come. His enemy had vanished. Without the battle, he had wondered what his true purpose was, and so, with his true name hidden, he had ferried his skiff from shore to shore for all who would pay their way. When the river washed up a boy with a box and a sword, he saw that his enemy had changed. But so had the ferryman. In the eyes of the boy who played with souls and tested all the rules, he saw more than a soul made of all the Dark in the world. He saw hope, and peace, and compassion. As the boy grew, the ferryman hoped the soul would lighten, but he soon realized he was wrong to hope to change the nature of the Dark, for without the Dark, there could be no Light. And so he watched the nameless soul eater make his mistakes and fight against the lies, and the ferryman knew, one day, the truth would be revealed and it would devour the boy. The battle would come. This would not be a battle of swords and worlds, of blood and armies, but a greater battle for one nameless boy’s soul.

  The ferryman smiled now. He looked down at the unfinished scroll listing all the dark in the worlds and added the boy’s final battle at the end of the tale. One day, the ferryman would fight his enemy again. It was the nature of Dark to contest the Light. But for now, the worlds were at rest. The nameless boy had won.

  The End.

  Also by Pippa DaCosta

  The Veil Series

  Wings of Hope ~ The Veil Series Prequel Novella

  Beyond The Veil (#1)

  Devil May Care (#2)

  Darkest Before Dawn (#3)

  Drowning In The Dark (#4)

  Ties That Bind (#5)

  Get your free e-copy of ‘Wings Of Hope’ by signing up to Pippa’s mailing list, here.

  Chaos Rises

  Chaos Rises (#1)

  Chaos Unleashed (#2)

  Soul Eater

  Hidden Blade (#1)

  Witches’ Bane (#2)

  See No Evil (#3)

  Scorpion Trap (#4)

  Serpent’s Game (#5
)

  Edge of Forever (#6)

  The 1000 Revolution

  #1: Betrayal

  #2: Escape

  #3: Trapped

  #4: Trust

  New Adult Urban Fantasy

  City Of Fae, London Fae #1

  City of Shadows, London Fae #2

  About the Author

  Born in Tonbridge, Kent in 1979, Pippa's family moved to the South West of England where she grew up among the dramatic moorland and sweeping coastlands of Devon & Cornwall. With a family history brimming with intrigue, complete with Gypsy angst on one side and Jewish survivors on the other, she draws from a patchwork of ancestry and uses it as the inspiration for her writing. Happily married and the mother of two little girls, she resides on the Devon & Cornwall border.

  Sign up to her mailing list at www.pippadacosta.com

  www.pippadacosta.com

  pippa@pippadacosta.com

  The 1000 Revolution (excerpt)

  “If Fran doesn’t get her fuckin’ ass in her flight chair in the next five minutes, I’m gonna fire her. Again,” I muttered and jabbed at the reset comms button for the fifth time.

  Yes, we were requesting airspace. Just tell that to my second. Damn that bitch. I could see her through the observation window and she knew it, hence her giving me a fine view of her back and her ass—a mighty fine ass. Another reason to fire her. She’d spent too much time with me, and not a moment of it in my bunk. A fact she liked to rub in my face every time I drank enough swill to try my luck with her.

  I kicked back in the flight chair, boots on the dash, and scratched at my chin. If I didn’t get out of this port in the next fifteen minutes, I’d have to pay dues to the authority. And here Fran was, chatting up the locals. She did this every fuckin’ time, like my schedule ran on her whims. If she didn’t have the kind of crazy piloting skills that made me look like an amateur, I’d have left her back on Ganymede, where I’d found her two years ago. Shit. We were practically married. The lack of sex proved it.

  I checked the time. Our take off window was approaching fast. Fuck her. I sat forward and started the pre-flight checks, falling into a familiar rhythm. The stabilizer warning light blinked on. I flicked it and it stuttered out. Good. “C’mon, baby.” Now was not the time for Starscream to start bitching at me too.

  I booted up the engines and the ship shivered and grumbled to life. A familiar thrill spilled through my veins. The sooner I got out of orbit, the sooner I could quit pretending to be sociable and get on with earning a living.

  I stood and leaned over the dash, catching Fran’s single finger salute. Hot downdraft air whipped her black hair around her severe face. Man, she looked pissed, and damn if she didn’t look hot as sin while pissed.

  “Aww, did I scare off your next trick?”

  She disappeared below the hull, out of sight. I chuckled and finished up the pre-flight checks, restless energy keeping me on my feet. Reaching up to switch from port control to manual, my gaze snagged on a group of port authority police weaving their way between the hangar technicians.

  Now what?

  If they were running scans, they’d find that I had enough illegal cargo in the hold for me to spend the rest of my forced retirement in Asgard.

  I snatched the comm and tucked it into my ear. “This is Captain Caleb Shepperd of the Starscream Independent tug. Number six-zero-six requesting final clearance. Over.”

  Static fizzed in my ear.

  “You son of a bitch.” Fran dropped into the master flight chair beside me, green eyes flashing. “I was getting us a—”

  I held up a finger and eyed the authority cops. They were searching around and inside cargo pallets, lifting tarps and nudging the contents with their guns’ muzzles, and weaving closer with every passing second. Whatever they were looking for, I needed clearance—now.

  “This is Calisto Port Authority. Hey, Cale. Francisca still busting your balls?” I recognized Benji’s voice as it came through on the secure comm, and thanked my lucky stars that I still had some friends left.

  “Ben—”

  “Fuck,” Fran hissed, having spotted the guards.

  “Ben, man, I got somewhere I really need to be. Can you give us immediate clearance?”

  “Oh, I dunno. Last time you bailed, I heard you left behind some pissed off folks baying for your blood.”

  “That was all sorted out. Not my fault.”

  Fran widened her eyes at me and thumbed at the guards, who now eyed my ship like their paychecks were sitting in the hold. They huddled in a group, checking their touchpads. One chinned a transmitter, likely relaying the ship’s ID to admin so they could pull Starscream’s data file. Dammit. One wrong data entry, one unchecked box, and they’d have cause to search us. My little tugship was as dull and uninteresting on file as she was to look at, unless they looked a little deeper.

  I swallowed hard.

  “You got any of that sweet from Io left?” Ben asked in a mock-whisper.

  I laughed easily, revealing none of the tension strumming through me. “I told you that stuff was potent.”

  “It ain’t for me.”

  “Of course it ain’t. You want some?” Just fuckin’ say yes already and let me out of this shithole.

  Fran eased the engines up. Starscream growled. The authority backed up but weren’t leaving. Shit. Someone had tipped them off.

  “I give you clearance and you bring me back some of that crack?” Ben clarified.

  “Sure.”

  “Clearance approved. Enjoy your flight, Cap’n.”

  I clicked my fingers at Fran. She punched the thrusters and immediately, alarms shrilled outside the ship, though I couldn’t hear much beyond the engines. Waves of red warning light washed through the hangar, forcing the authority to retreat behind the blast screens. Good enough for me.

  “That was too close.”

  Fran buckled up and grabbed the flight stick. “Sit your ass down, hotshot. We’re outta here.”

  I dropped back into the seat and strapped myself in, flicking the stat’s screen down over the observation window. Starscream groaned. “I know, baby. I feel that way too. We’ll be back-in-black in no time.”

  “Hey, Cale?” Fran began. I knew that tone. Like I’d said, we might as well have been married. Jesus. I’d rather take a trip to Asgard. “We have a passenger,” she finished, careful to keep her attention on the flight controls.

  Fuck.

  “You’re a bitch, you know that?” I engaged the array of gyros and micro-balancers as Starscream lifted off the hangar deck. “You know I fuckin’ hate live cargo.”

  “He’s paying.”

  “You’ll be payin’ with your job. Did you check his creds?” By her brief hesitation, I guessed not.

  “He doesn’t have any credentials,” she admitted. “Why do you think he wanted to board with us? If he had creds, he’d go commercial.” She gave a disgusted snort.

  I opened my mouth to ask what the hell she was playing at, but only managed a weary sigh. No creds meant he was hiding something. Weren’t we all? Whatever his secret was, it was too late now. As Starscream lifted into high atmosphere, there was no way in hell I was docking her right back into the lap of the port authority. Sunlight flashed across the nose of the ship. I got a panoramic view of Calisto’s cluttered airspace right before the shields rolled down, blocking it all out. The ship gave a relieved quiver as the umbilical snapped free.

  Fran leaned forward. “Back-in-black, here we come.”

  She hit the orbit engines control button with a triumphant smack. Nothing happened. Worse than nothing, we drifted, chugging idly away from Calisto on atmosphere engines like a wounded animal.

  “What did you break now?” she snapped.

  “Remind me again why I keep you around? Did you change the rotary coil?”

  “I did the fuckin’ repairs.” She eased back on the stick and limped Starscream out of the congested port airspace.

  At this rate, port authority woul
d be all over us like gravity on old Earth, demanding we de-clutter their airspace—dock or fuck off.

  “It isn’t the coil.” Fran shook her head. Her fingers worked fast over the various displays, sweeping, highlighting and dismissing potential solutions. “The new coil is up and running. It’s something simple.” She paused and pinched her bottom lip between her teeth. “Keep her airborne. I’ll go check.”

  “No.” I tossed my comms piece onto the flight dash and unclipped my belt. “I’ll go.” Having a dedicated ship’s mechanic would have been useful right about now.

  I shoved myself out of the flight chair and came face to face with Fran’s guy from the hangar. He looked about as beat-up and weary as I felt.

  “We haven’t left orbit yet,” I told him, looking up to meet his glare. The bastard was easily a foot taller than me. “You need to stay strapped in.”

  “I just wanted to see the bridge.”

  I huffed through my nose. “Sit the fuck down and stay outta the way until we’re black-bound, got me?”

  His eyes flashed and his pale lips twitched. I sized him up: heavier than me, with dry, red-rimmed eyes and a face peppered with what looked like shrapnel scars. He’d clearly been around the nine systems a few times. His ragged, mismatched clothes screamed drifter. Fran sure knew how to pick ‘em.

  I glanced back at my second-in-command. She shrugged and turned away, but not before I caught the smirk on her face.

  Fran’s date grumbled something that sounded distinctly derogatory. He probably thought he could punch me out in a brawl. If he tried anything—like the twitch in his cheek suggested he might—he’d learn how I got busted knuckles and a busted rep.

  “My ship. My rules. You don’t like it, you know where the airlock is.” I shoved past our paying guest and jogged down the catwalk.

  Fran’s voice chased after me, saying something about anger management, and I added her smartass mouth to the growing list of reasons to fire her.