To Kill the Dead (Hollowcliff Detectives Book 3)
Page 22
“You knew her?”
She nodded. “I hope you killed whoever did it. Painfully.”
“I chopped them into pieces, but that won’t stop what’s coming. It’s only the beginning.”
The vamp stared at her, taking in what she’d said.
“Chopped, huh? Never took you for the type. Very well, then.” She pointed curtly toward the door. “Go save us all, Detective.”
Bast waited for Mera on the hospital roof.
Sunrise drenched him in a soft morning glow, turning her hart into a work of art. For the first time since the shitshow with Azinor went down, Mera felt lucky. So very lucky to have him.
Turning to face her, he opened his arms.
Mera rushed to him, pressing her face against his strong chest, listening to Bast’s heartbeat as she wrapped her arms around him. Fingers digging into his back, she doubted she could ever let go.
The world should be made of this and only this: the two of them, right there in that moment. In his strong embrace, she found complete peace, even if briefly.
“I don’t want this to end,” she spoke against his shirt, her voice muffled.
Bast squeezed her closer, his arms enveloping her shoulders. Of course he sensed her fatigue, her sorrow.
Her loss.
They shared an unbreakable bond, a small window into each other’s souls.
“Julian might not make it through the night,” she muttered.
“He will be fine.” His kiss grazed the top of her head. “The shig isn’t one of my favorite people, but he’s a strong malachai. Stronger than a cockroach, I’d say.”
An awful remark, but Mera chuckled anyway. She hoped his words would become truth.
Worst case scenario, Emma would turn Julian into a vamp, a solution which would bring its own set of headaches.
“I can’t do this without Ruth. She was always by my side.” Mera stifled the cry that swelled in her throat.
“You’re not alone. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
His vow soothed her, even though her mom had once promised her the same.
Sniffing back unshed tears, Mera looked up at Bast. “We have to tell Councilor Adams. He was close to Mom.”
Her hart observed her with a certain gravity, his expression hard as stone. “The councilor called shortly after I reported the Captain’s fate. He’s on his way here.”
“What will we tell him?”
“The truth. That your amma was killed by a siren necromancer.” He stared at her pointedly. “After that, we follow my testimony on the report. We tell him you shot Green in a rage, that the bullet hit her forehead, and that the ocean strangely took her body away. No mention of her being undead and your biological mother. Understood?”
A bitter taste settled on Mera’s tongue. “We have to at least tell him about Azinor. He’s a danger to Hollowcliff and the rest of Tagrad. The council needs to be aware.”
“Absolutely not. Azinor’s existence links back to you, and there’s no way we can prove he’s even real.” Sighing dispiritedly, Bast cupped her cheek. “Ruth protected your secret for over a decade, but the shelter she provided is gone. We must tread carefully.”
Mera’s chest ached.
Pivoting toward the sunset, she watched the shiny yellow orb lower to the horizon, hiding behind the towering skyscrapers of Clifftown. A soft breeze caressed her skin, blowing a newfound resolution in her.
Mera was one of Hollowcliff’s finest, daughter of the toughest and most honorable police captain out there. A woman who’d saved her, even though Mera was a merling; even though keeping her alive broke the law.
Ultimately, there was one rule Ruth Maurea always put above the city’s needs.
Protect the innocent, at all costs.
Mera would spend her days honoring her mom’s legacy.
“There’s more,” she countered quietly. “Azinor wants the world to burn, including my people’s home. Since his attempt to bring mayhem to land failed—”
“He’ll turn to the sea.” Bast’s eyes widened in horror. “Surely, you’re not saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I am.”
“I can’t let you do it, min hart. I won’t.”
“There’s no other way.” Mera’s hands fisted as she fully understood the absurdity, and impossibility, of what she was about to say. “I have to return to Atlantea.”
Chapter 32
The sea was immutable. Eternal.
Like him.
A metallic drone whirred next to Poseidon. The thing was shaped like a stingray and it moved with the same easy flow, its glowing blue eyes shining without a soul within.
The technology Ariella had fostered during her reign never failed to surprise him. Her brother, Barrimond, had pushed the advancements forward after her death, until Atlantean technology far surpassed that of the land. In fact, the waterbreaker king could have easily conquered the continent by now, yet he refused.
No one else had lived long enough to witness the irony of time like Poseidon had.
It didn’t matter. When his hour came, he would correct the fool’s mistake.
Glancing at the metallic stingray next to him, he grinned. The little devices could be incredibly easy to tame. Learning how to reprogram them took a fair share of time, of course.
Eventually, he learned. He learned many things.
His old world had vanished, yet Tagrad still stood. The blasted nation was stronger than ever, despite its vast array of creatures. Surprising, really. Poseidon had expected at least a handful of civil wars, yet the landriders had strived.
Marinum, the old waterbreaker borough, had been split between Clifftown and Lycannie. Meanwhile Atlantea flourished, isolated from the land that had once been theirs.
Disappointing.
Had Ariella been alive, the entire continent would belong to their kind by now. She would have conquered and slain, bathed in a symphony of landrider blood.
His fists balled at the missed opportunity. Their merling had put an early end to this beautiful future when she’d shoved a triton into her mother’s gut, all at the tender age of thirteen.
Impressive, if misguided.
Funny how small actions could change the course of history. Killing Astred the dove had certainly had that effect.
A certain pain pricked his chest as he remembered her. Astred was beautiful, nearly ethereal, and she’d hated Poseidon with the same intensity with which he’d loved her.
Indeed, he’d loved her as he jammed the blade in her gut, as he squeezed her neck and watched her face become purple. He’d loved her as she stopped thrashing, and life faded from her pretty doe eyes.
Blaming her death on the witches had been awfully easy, and thus, Poseidon sparked the Great War.
All on his own.
Losing Astred had pained him, but eternity tended to make one numb. What was love against a greater purpose? Against infinity itself?
He’d never expected to feel that way again until… his gaze fell to the circle of body parts beneath him.
Until her.
The stingray-shaped device next to him whirred. The glowing blue orbs on each side of the machine shone brightly before a soft glimmer burst from the thing, aimed at the queen’s remains.
Ariella’s pieces lifted into the currents, floating inside the glowing net of light. Ironic that it resembled a fishing net.
The queen was his catch, he supposed.
Swimming forward, he pushed his palm through an opening in the net to find Ariella’s chopped hand.
He might be too weak to reconstruct her, but he could keep her there, with him.
Concentrating, he attempted to find her soul amidst the great unending space. That was what he called it: the place where every soul went shortly after their passing.
Some, however, lingered if unfinished business tormented them, business such as grudges, or an insufferable amount of hate. Poseidon chuckled to himself. Ariella had plenty of both, especially wh
en it came to their child. It was how he’d found her, even years after her death, raging in limbo. However, he wasn’t strong enough to bring her back.
After breaking free of his prison, he spent two years regaining his energies, walking between land and sea and learning about the brand new world that opened before him.
It took long. Far too long, so he grew impatient. After all, he’d spent thousands of years trapped, biding his time.
He couldn’t wait another day.
When he met a smart, young woman named Sara Hyland, he saw an opportunity that paid out wonderfully. Her pills could help him raise the dead, specifically his dead queen.
If only Sara hadn’t grown a conscience.
He’d considered raising her after her passing, but Poseidon had enough strength to bring back one single soul, and that was Ariella’s. Besides, the human would harbor pure hatred toward him for killing their unborn child.
How could she blame him, though? The youngling would have been a halfling. Death had been a better fate.
Eventually, he raised Ariella and found a way to raise many others with her help, using Sara’s pills. Even in death the queen’s magic was strong, and it amplified his own, turning her into a mighty necromancer—for the time she had the power, at least.
An opportunity to unleash chaos in Tagrad surged to the surface, one that could engulf the land in blissful, perfect, mayhem. His plan had been set, yet his plan failed.
Thanks to their daughter.
A nuisance, but not the end of the world.
The runes tattooed in his body glowed a bright gold as he scanned the unending space further.
Damn that wench! He’d told Ariella to stay near his essence in case she was killed again, but following directions had never been one of her strong suits.
“I still have to make you pay for disobeying me,” he grumbled to himself, eyes closed as he tried to find her. “Ending our daughter before her time would have destroyed my plan. Now, where are you?”
Ah, there.
He found the queen’s soul scurrying away, like a scared fish swimming from a shark. Her lime-green essence shuddered in fear of him.
Indeed, she feared and loved him. A wonderful mix, he figured.
Chuckling low in his chest, he shook his head. “Come here.”
Pulling her soul toward him, he opened his eyes. His golden runes glowed green as he channeled her essence from the unending space back into her deformed head. Once they were done, his runes stopped shining.
The queen’s head pulsed with lime-green light, the sign Ariella Wavestorm was there. Yet her eye remained blank, for she had to be properly raised.
“Yes, yes.” He patted the top of her floating head through the gap in the force field, sensing the blinding anger thrumming inside her. “Hmm? Well, if she killed you twice, you can’t call her a weakling, dear.”
Outrage flowed from her essence into his, followed by the need to rip his head off his body.
Licking his lips, Poseidon smiled. The wench was fierce, and yet, she hid something deep inside; something not at all like her.
A futile attempt.
“You’re upset because our daughter grieved the human she called Mom? I assumed you didn’t care.”
She didn’t. It was what her emotions claimed, yet her soul burned because Mera hadn’t mourned her.
“You tortured the merling her whole childhood. Surely, you can’t expect—”
Not torture. Ariella had been preparing her.
“Preparing her for what?”
Her essence shuddered again.
Ah, yes. Preparing her to be queen.
Waving a hand dismissively, he clicked his tongue. “Your emotions are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. As long as you focus on our end goal, I do not care, understand? You might be my soulmate, but you know your fate if you disobey me a second time.”
The soul inside the head quivered.
Poseidon moved toward the open ocean, and the metallic stingray with the force-field containing Ariella followed beside him. But something caught his eye, half-sunken in the ocean floor, next to the Crown of Land and Sea.
Ariella’s shrieks pierced through his ears, making him wince.
“It’s just a crown. Of course I was leaving it behind.” When she screamed again, his patience grew thin. “Challenge me again, dear. I dare you.”
The queen’s soul became silent.
Diving, Poseidon grabbed the blasted crown. After all, it might be of some use in the future, considering it was a magical object. One could never have too many of those. He certainly did not pick it because the wench cared for it.
Absolutely not.
A dragon-roar rumbled in the distance, followed by a burst of lime-green waterblaze. His pet must be searching for him.
Swimming further down, he grabbed the other object on the sand, the one which had called his attention in the first place.
Ariella’s words began to form, no longer thoughts and raging emotions. A sign that her essence was settling inside her flesh capsule.
“Our daughter will pay for ruining your plans. I promise.” Her voice reverberated in his mind.
“Not yet, dear.”
“When?”
Smiling, he studied the dark-silver pin shaped like a hexagon, with a red ruby encrusted in its middle.
“Soon.”
Find out what happens next in TO KILL A GOD, the FINAL installment in the Hollowcliff Detectives series.
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Also by C.S. Wilde
Hollowcliff Detectives:
TO KILL A FAE
TO KILL A KING
TO KILL THE DEAD
TO KILL A GOD
Angels of Fate Series:
BLESSED LIGHT (Angels of Fate Prequel)
BLESSED FURY (Angels of Fate book 1)
CURSED DARKNESS (Angels of Fate book 2)
SACRED WAR (Coming in 2021)
Science Fiction Romance:
FROM THE STARS (The Dimensions series book 1)
BEYOND THE STARS (The Dimensions series book 2)
ACROSS THE STARS (The Dimensions series book 3)
The Dimensions Series Boxset (Get book 1 for free with the boxset)
Urban Fantasy Romance:
SWORD WITCH
Paranormal Thriller Adventure:
A COURTROOM OF ASHES
About the Author
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Contents
Untitled
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28