Soon he hung limp in Thema’s grasp and the light from the dagger faded to a faint glimmer. The storm clouds cleared and his body drifted back down to the ground.
Cindy crawled forward to reach him – if she could just touch him like before. Her movements caught Thema’s eye and the Nereid’s head whipped around to face her. Her eyes smoldered with hatred and her mouth twisted into a cruel smile.
“Come and weep over your lover, princess. You too will soon die, linked as you both are. And this time, there will be no returning on your silver wheel of time.
Cindy’s eyes filled with tears and confusion at the nymph’s words and she thought she heard voices shouting off in the distance.
“But come quickly,” Thema said, “let’s let everyone see. Nothing sets up a new ruler like a grand piece of theater and my armies expect a spectacle tonight!”
With those words, Thema moved to hover over Cindy and Ronan as a huge gust of wind and water swirled around them. The force of the gale grew until they were surrounded by a funnel of storm. Cindy shut her eyes. She held on to Ronan with all of her strength as the vortex opened and the three of them moved through worlds.
Chapter Forty-seven
Ramone’s
Adam, Shep, Lloyd and Solomon, made it up into Ramone’s. Pandemonium had already spread throughout the place. Clouds of dust hung in the air and drifted off the demons' bodies when they moved, making the whole bar look smoke-filled.
It smelled like sulfur and ash and made Adam’s nose twitch. Lloyd sneezed behind them.
“Dirty fuckers aren’t they?” he heard the big man say.
They fought their way to the front of the club, slicing through demons and trying to avoid the humans that got in the way. When they got there, the door burst open. Two humans in black leathers came rushing in but they had blades at least and looked ready to help, though Adam had never seen them before.
“Trent,” Shep yelled from across the room, “what the hell are you doing here?”
“Dad,” the blond man called out running to cut down a Miserian that was coming for Shep from behind.
The other agent, a female, sighted Lloyd and went to fight back to back with him. Adam shook his head then went to lock the front door to bar some humans that were trying to come into Ramone’s.
“Hey man, what’s up,” one of them yelled at him and threw his hands up in question. He was young, in the middle of what looked like an identity crisis wearing an outfit that was a cross between hipster and gangland.
“We’re closed,” Adam said and shut the door. He flipped the neon sign off and turned back around to what was happening in his club.
He cleared the entrance of demons and sent any humans the creatures hadn’t gotten to with Solomon to hide in the storeroom. Then he made quick work of a Miserian that had one of his bartenders by the hair, with his machete. Its head rolled off the counter and onto the floor behind the bar. The bartender screamed and ran for the doors. He’d clear her memory later – all part of the clean up.
The commander and his “Keepers” proved useful in battle and were already taking demons down throughout the club. Adam had to admit, he liked their fighting style. The club was writhing with underworld scum though, making the dark rooms swim with black and ashy dust.
He hopped up over the bar and started cleaning house with a vengeance. Once he’d made it all the way through the club, he could see that some of the demons had made it to the outside area of the bar. It looked like Santiago and his men had heard the call and were already out there fighting. A small blur caught his eye in the middle of all the activity and he recognized the whirlwind just as it took down a Miserian with a flying roundhouse kick to the chest. The blur’s body stilled for a second so that the only thing moving was a length of chestnut brown ponytail that swung over its owner’s shoulder and fell into place right before a blade came down and lopped the demon’s head off.
“Marlowe,” Adam ground out as his hand reached for the door leading outside. Agent Six. Just wait till he got his hands on her.
Before he could finish that line of thought, however, something sprang onto his back and sniffed at his neck.
“Royalty,” it breathed. “Imagine our luck.”
Gods he hated the underworld. The demon reared back, set to rip out his throat with its teeth and, in an instant, Adam turned and swung the demon to the ground then brought his machete around in an arc of continued momentum to deliver the death blow.
“I’m trying,” he said to the body, in response to its remark about fortune. It didn’t seem all that ‘lucky’ to him now.
He blasted through the back door of the club. By now, Shep and Lloyd were right behind him with the other two Keepers. The area swam with Miserians and more appeared from all sides. Adam searched the area but there was no sight of Marley anywhere.
“We just saw Six,” Shep said, searching the beach area for his agent.
“I’ll look in the alley,” Lloyd called, lumbering that way with the other two agents trailing.
Detective Santiago and his men were rounding up human survivors and trying to herd them into a group so they could protect them from the attack.
“Get them to Solomon,” Adam shouted, “he has others in the back.”
Santiago nodded then started moving. He had their brand of “crowd control” down pat in the manner that Adam had trained the detective and his men when they’d formed their secret team some time ago. Adam kept moving and knocked off a few more demons on his way to help the Keepers find Marlowe. One look at the roiling waves out on the ocean told him this was no night for a lone human girl-woman to be out, no matter how bad-ass she thought she was.
That was when he heard a scream from above. He looked up.
Why the fuck was she on the roof? He was up there in an instant, moving through space and time using energy that was ancient and advanced all at once. It didn’t matter if anyone around the bar saw him. At this point they were all demons or freaks like him anyway.
A flash of something caught his eye and he turned toward the metal housings for the building’s AC units. She was there, in-between the boxes, her feet dangling high off the ground. Something held her by the throat but all Adam could see was a giant beast-like arm and a hand squeezing her windpipe. She was trying to scream but only gurgled then her whole body went stiff in the second before he could move across the roof to get to her. At his approach, the demon that held her turned and snarled at him dripping ooze from its fanged mouth. It turned back to its prey and watched Marley’s body go slack in its hand.
Adam charged forward with his machete poised to slice the creature’s arm from its body when it suddenly threw her limp form against the vents and jumped off the roof, vanishing mid-air. Adam ran over and turned Marley over to find she was still breathing. He checked her for any massive injuries then lifted her in his arms and sifted them both down below the club where he laid her down. Then what sounded like a siren blaring came from up above and the walls and ceiling shook.
“Shit,” he said.
He took one last look at Marley and flashed back up above ground.
A fierce wind blew in off the sea like a typhoon. The local weather dork was probably beside himself on TV right now waving frantically in front of his green screen. Adam would have laughed at the picture in his mind but he saw that everyone had stopped. All eyes, human and demon alike, were turned toward the rock fountain outside his club.
There in the middle of the fountain, with a whirl of wind and water spinning to encase them, was Ronan looking all but dead, the blonde woman and Thema the nymph queen standing over both of them. Adam strained his eyes to focus through the swirling storm until Thema lifted her arms and everything settled. Out of the rocks behind them, five giant sailors from the eighteenth century tumbled out through the rip the nymph had left open in the vortex that Ramone’s stood on top of.
Adam rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath.
“It’s a fucking family
reunion.”
Then Thema started to speak.
“The old gods’ reign is done and it’s time for a new ruler to take over.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Cindy heard Thema talking but she was still on the fringes of a vision. As soon as they’d entered the Tides, her consciousness had fled to an ancient time. Just before they’d arrived back on earth, she’d been struck with a new knowledge and it shattered her world. She looked at Ronan in confusion. Confusion and recognition. Somewhere from deep within the recesses of her memory, a name surfaced. She looked down into his clear blue eyes and, all at once, lifetimes joined together ─ his, hers and theirs.
“Gadeiros,” she whispered.
“Cara,” he managed though his voice was weak.
He was a king and she was his princess, sent to him by the moon goddess to seal a pact. She was tied to him by an ancient power. They’d been cast apart though by destruction and curses. Many lifetimes for each of them rushed past her mind’s eye in a blur, too fleeting to grasp, but clear to her somehow all the same. Each one of those lifetimes had been filled with a desperate search and longing as they’d tried to find one another and then she’d been trapped.
She cried out and brought her hands to her head, trying to block out centuries of pain and seeking that ran in two streams until, finally, they converged. Now, in this time, they’d finally found each other. The king and his moon princess.
Ronan gripped Cindy’s arm, trying to help even as he lay there dying.
“Ah, so finally you’ve caught on,” Thema said to her, “too bad for you both that your time is done. All the careful weavings of Arianrhod and her silver wheel of ages come to an end tonight!”
She laughed.
“Poseidon should never have betrayed me, I was meant to be your queen Gadeiros,” she looked at Ronan, her eyes wild with insanity, “together we would have ruled all of Atlantea! Your brothers would have come to heel.”
Someone snorted from behind the crowd and Thema glared at the man named Adam then went on.
“They would have been no match for you with me by your side. But you were a fool, just like your bride and your deceitful sire and now you will all die!”
She reached down for the stone at Cindy’s neck and wrenched at its chain. The gold bit into Cindy’s skin but she grabbed it to keep it from the crazed Nereid. Now she knew its story too. It was her birthright, given to her on her wedding day to bind her to Gadeiros and the land they would rule together. It was no ordinary rock but the Emanian Pearl of the Moon and held great power for those it was named to. It was hers and the sea tramp couldn’t have it!
“Let go,” she screamed at Thema but the nymph held fast.
“Don’t worry, little princess, when I bind the stone to myself I’ll use your names to curse with it ─ Aureliaura and the great King Gadeiros. Isn’t that how the Keltoi magic works? A stone of binding and naming and spells,” she laughed again and yanked on the amulet so hard that Cindy felt as if her neck would snap but she held on with a super strength she’d never known she possessed.
Then, above Thema’s head, a cluster of falling stars dove through the air.
Her moon sprites, thank god! They flew around Thema’s face and she snarled at them. Cindy acted quickly this time and pulled back with all her weight. The stone broke free from Thema’s grasp and the nymph spun around. She would have descended on Cindy then but for the tiny army of sprites. They surrounded her and Ronan both and a powerful glow built in an instant by the magic creatures. She knew what this was, they’d protected her before, from wild animals when she’d been that laughing child in Emania.
Thema dove at them in a rage but the sprites’ shield blasted her back and she shrieked out her fury. Cindy looked down at Ronan and then out at their surroundings. The crowd was filled with ghouls like the ones that had attacked her on the beach, their dead faces shrouded in black hoods. But, interspersed with them, she saw people she knew.
Her dad, brother and uncle were here miraculously, so was Leslie and they all had weapons. The detective was there too, Ronan’s crewmates, Adam and the huge guard from under Ramone’s. They were all staring at her, seeming to hold their breath, waiting for what she would do.
She looked past Thema and something else caught her eye. Across from her, out in the crowd standing behind Adam was the fisherman from the island who had saved her when she’d been dragged into the lake. He was handsome as ever but looked transparent like a ghost. His clothes were different, there were less of them for one thing. They revealed a shining body that rippled with huge muscles and he held a giant fork in his hand. Wait a minute…was that? It couldn’t be.
He smiled at her and, suddenly, Cindy knew what to do. She knelt down next to Ronan and cradled his head in her lap. He was heavy but she brought him up close to her chest and draped the moon pearl’s gold chain around both their necks then held his hand around the amulet’s stone in her own. The stone responded immediately, vibrating with power. It burned with a brilliant light, no longer the plain gray rock from the pirate’s tale but an ancient power, strong enough to send Thema straight to hell where she belonged.
The moon sprites flew away in all directions now that the amulet’s power was in their mistress’s hands. Cindy’s eyes met Thema’s ─stormy blue to swirling black─ and the nymph tried to move back a step but she was held in place by the moon pearl’s spell.
“I have only to utter your new name Thema. You obviously know how the stone’s powers work and now so do I.”
“Don’t,” Thema said, desperate now, “we can rule together, you and I, princess. Let the king die and join with me, our power would be limitless. The seas, the earth, the moon and stars ─ every realm from every dimension could be yours.”
Cindy tilted her head, feigning consideration.
Thema smiled, coaxing, she really thought that there was no way anyone would pass up the kind of power she was offering.
Cindy’s smile grew wider.
“I have it,” she said.
“Yes,” Thema agreed.
“Yup, it took me a minute but I’m good at this game. Real good.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Thema’s eyes were wide now. They reminded Cindy of a fish. How fitting she thought then angled the amulet in her and Ronan’s hands until its light blasted forth at the Nereid queen.
“Thema witch of the sea, with the powers of Emania and Poseidon combined, I name you Helen Finz! You are cursed to be eaten alive by your worst nightmare.”
That last bit seemed to have transplanted itself into her brain at the last second. She looked up at the fisherman and he winked at her.
She even said it without smirking. Who would have ever thought her stupid name game would be what saved the day and ultimately everyone’s asses? Leslie sputtered from out in the crowd then nodded at her and flashed a double thumbs-up. Damn straight.
Hot gold light issued forth from the stone like a shot of lightening and struck Thema, lifting and twisting her body in the air. She froze in an arc bending backwards, her mouth open on a soundless scream of shock. The crystal dagger fell from her hand and then she was swallowed up by thin air.
Cindy shook with relief. She sank against the rocks still holding Ronan’s head to her chest. His eyes had closed and his body was completely still against her own. She looked at the empty gray sky where Thema had hung in the air just seconds ago then her gaze travelled out into the crowd. Trent was running toward her.
“Trent!” She cried out and he hugged her once he made it to her side.
“It’s gonna be okay Cin. Just stay down,” he said and somehow brought the moon sprites back to them. Holy crap! Everyone in her whole boring life really had some explaining to do but she’d worry about that later.
A fierce wind picked up again and she clung to Ronan. Trent stood above them and she wondered how he stayed upright. Everyone else was struggling to stay put as well but the Miserians were all suddenly knocked flat and sucked
through the portal back at the rock wall that was still open. Their mass of bodies looked like black water as they were vacuumed through worlds. The air hung thick with falling ash from the demons. They were covered in the stuff since Thema had used a sea volcano to open up the vortex wide enough for her little uprising. It fell through the air like snow.
“Gross,” Cindy muttered and Trent chuckled.
Her dad and Leslie moved toward them but stopped when Trent started talking.
“Snow and smoke,” he intoned and she’d never heard him talk like that before, “fire like water,” the volcanic eruption, “a black flood,” that’s what the demons looked like getting sucked back to hell, “end death.”
Wait a minute. That last one didn’t sound good.
Trent and the sprites moved away. Leslie and her dad stood stock still and then everyone stared at her like they were waiting for something to happen.
She looked down at Ronan, lying lifeless in her arms, and forgot about everything else.
Frantic, she tugged at the front of his shirt and looked at his chest, searching for the wound that had been inflicted but there was nothing, no blood, just his smooth skin unmoving beneath her hands. She brushed his hair away from his cheek and forehead.
“Ronan,” she half whispered, half cried, “Ronan don’t go, don’t leave me. I just found you.”
His body was still warm. She knew the truth now of who she was and who he was. She had to be able to help him. Surely it would come to her. She searched her mind for some bit of information from her newfound past but all those memories that had come upon her so strong mere moments ago had faded swiftly into the recesses of her mind. She knew the truth of their identities but the specifics had drifted away from her, leaving her with no idea what to do.
He couldn’t really be gone could he? She refused to believe that, at the same time, the familiar emptiness she knew so well pierced through her stronger than it ever had before. What had she done to him? He’d sacrificed himself to keep her safe even though she’d been so quick to paint him the villain. She should have seen through Thema’s scheme sooner. It was all so clear to her now. He’d needed her to trust in him but she’d been too afraid. Afraid to believe in the world he’d taken her to when in the end his world was more real than anything she’d ever known.
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