Encore (Descendants of Ra: Book 4)

by Tmonique Stephens

A weight shifted inside Ridley. The always-present tension in her muscles eased. She felt lighter, relaxed, and seemed to breathe for the first time in years.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” EJ glanced between her and the closed door. They both knew who waited on the other side and how much it meant to her.

  But without her, Emeline would die.

  “I’m sure.” Ridley reached for the thread and found it hadn’t moved from the last position. She spun and EJ was there, filling her vision.

  “I know where he is, EJ. And it’s not Times Square.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Ridley focused on the signature of Alamut’s vis’Ra. She found his soul easily enough, but as soon as she’d lock onto his power and his location, the bastard vanished. Forty fucking minutes of leapfrog! Did he know she tracked him? Did he know about the curse and planned to run her clock out?

  It didn’t help that every member of the Nicolis family breathed down her freaking neck. It was a bad idea to use the Harvester to open a vortex and return to RockGate. After EJ heard of Hector’s death, nothing could dissuade him. And it made sense. Once she located Alamut, they could leave as a team. If only they would all stop staring at her while she tried to concentrate. Every damn eyeball judged her, measured her failure in real time. They didn’t have the decency to wait ’til she was dead.

  Someone coughed and Ridley snapped. She jumped up from her seated position.

  “Have you found him?” Avery swooped in on her.

  “I’m too distracted here.”

  The house phone rang. Roman put it on speaker.

  “Time Square at midnight. Just EJ. No one else.” The line went dead.

  “EJ your phone.” She held out her hand and snatched it from him when he didn’t move fast enough. “I’m going outside. Don’t follow me.”

  EJ squashed the chorus of protests as Ridley zoomed to the backyard in full view of the great room where everyone waited. In the quiet, cold night, she stilled her racing heart, allowed her head to fall back, and let her gift unfurl. She would pin him down for EJ if that was the last thing she did.

  One minute ticked away. Then another.

  Frustrated, she turned her attention to all his previous locations and discovered a pattern. She opened EJ’s phone and pressed Avery’s name in his contact list. He answered on the first ring. “Send men to Emeline’s townhouse, the cabin, Times Square, RedZone, and Penn Station, the Order, and Avery’s loft.” And another location somewhere on the other side of the state in Lochfield.

  “You’re spreading us too thin.” Avery snarled.

  Not her…Alamut. “He keeps going to these locations.” As she spoke to Avery, EJ jogged from the house and stopped in front of her.

  “Where is he going next? Guess,” he said when she shook her head and shrugged.

  “If the pattern holds, Emeline’s house.”

  “Going there now.” Avery ended the call. White light flared from the great room signifying a vortex opening. Multiple vortexes opened seconds later.

  It was too easy. Too predictable. There was another location he kept going to and only staying a fraction of a second. It was somewhere in Lochfield, except she couldn’t quite pinpoint it. She had a hunch. Was a hunch enough to send all the men there?

  EJ’s phone rang. It was Avery. She handed it over to EJ. He listened to his brother with a grim face. “He found a ten quimaera there still as gravestones. No trace of Emeline or Stella.”

  Texts from the other men stated the same: Contingent of quimaera. NO WOMEN.

  Eighteen minutes to go.

  The men were ordered to stay at their locations. “We need to go to Times Square. Stake the place out and get the jump on him.” EJ looked at her, the weight of his stare at least a ton.

  “Then what? Beat the shit out of him and hope he tells you where Emeline and Stella are before they die from god knows what?” she snapped, not at him, but at everything that led to this moment in her too short life.

  Lochfield was on the other side of the state, near Lake Ontario. She had to make a decision. Everyone counted on her. Lives were in the balance.

  What if I’m wrong?

  What if she went there and couldn’t find Alamut?

  You know where he’ll be at midnight.

  If she could locate the women while Alamut collected the Harvester, she could call in their location, and one of the men could save them. It was risky, but they didn’t have another choice. She told EJ about Lochfield.

  “Let’s go.” He raided the Harvester.

  “No. There’s not enough time. Maybe it’s the distance, but I’m not sure where in Lochfield Alamut is hiding. I have to go there and try to locate him. You have to be in Times Square at midnight.”

  “I have to be with you at midnight.” The set of his jaw, the desperation in his eyes, the fingers digging into her arm said what neither of them could.

  What do you say to the man you love when you know this is goodbye? After everything they’d been through—everything she had put him through—I love you didn’t seem enough. Even though that was all she had to give him, she wouldn’t burden him with the knowledge. Some things should be taken to the grave.

  She kissed him, wrapped her tongue around his, and poured her love into him. Then she snatched his phone out of his hand. “I’m going to check it out. Stay with Avery.”

  His shout was lost in her afterburn.

  She didn’t think as she ran. Right now, thinking was overrated. Speed: The clench and release of her muscles, the adrenaline was gasoline to her engine. She laid it all on the line. Her muscles burned in the best sort of way. Burned away the past. Burned away the what-could’ve-been future.

  Used to quick sprints, she adjusted and settled into a long distance stride. After an initial cramp, the wind felt exquisite, streaming over her body. At her fastest speed, it would take her ten minutes to get there. Her watch said she had thirteen minutes left in her life. That left her three minutes to find him. If she could find him.

  She made it to the outskirts of Lochfield and stopped on the university campus near the center of town. Four minutes left. She’d beaten her best time.

  Dizzy, she sagged against a tree. Her fuel tank was nearly dry and patting her pockets didn’t reveal a forgotten chocolate bar to give her a burst of energy. Yet her senses were on overdrive. Alamut was here!

  In the city. And not far.

  She pulled the phone out of her pocket and paused. Just because Alamut was here didn’t mean Emeline and Stella were here also. Calling EJ now when she hadn’t confirmed their presence could mean their end.

  Ridley gathered her remaining strength, latched onto the thread, and let it lead her through downtown, the affluent Eastside with its private schools, freshly plowed streets, and McMansions, to the industrial North side of town. She crested a small hill. Behind a fence, not far from the lake, she found the concrete entrance of an abandoned tunnel.

  “It’s underground. Out of the way. Off the beaten path. No one will stumble over it.” And if that wasn’t enough, the rusted fence would keep everyone away. Oh, look! A hole. She climbed through and managed to not roll down the embankment and skewer herself on exposed rebar. Weaving, she moved between the abandoned cars and ancient household appliances.

  Plywood covered the opening of the tunnel; however, there was a nice quimaera-sized hole cut into the barrier. She stepped through and a whiff of meaty, rancid air with an overlay of mold and rusted metal assaulted her. She didn’t have the time to recoil. She didn’t have any time at all.

  Her sight adjusted to the total darkness, and she quickly navigated the mounds of old newspapers, Styrofoam cups, take-out containers and assorted random debris. A few feet in, the tunnel split and divided into two different dark roads. The thread she sensed veered to the left. So that’s where she went, down the road, around the curve, and ran right into rows upon rows of quimaera. So many, she couldn’t count. Their reptilian eyes glowed from an internal light,
and they were still. An army of quimaera statues guarding nothing.

  A sliver of light leaking beneath a door on the right side of the tunnel caught her attention. Ridley eased around the beasts. The quimaera didn’t move. Her watched beeped. A two-minute warning she’d set years ago. Her head swam, vision grew blurry and winked in and out, her strength waned. Whether it be the run or the curse, her tank was done.

  She gripped the handle of the door, more to hold herself up than to get inside. The door shifted under her weight and parted enough for her body to fall through. She lay there, half in, half out of the room.

  “Ridley? Ridley!”

  She craned her head around to look behind her. Stella lay on the floor curled on her side. Beside her, hanging from a light fixture, was Emeline.

  “Help us,” she hissed.

  That’s the game plan. Ridley rolled onto her side and managed to push off onto her hands and knees again. She got the phone out and pressed Avery’s number. No bars.

  The energy she would’ve used to curse, she channeled into crawling to the two women. She went to Stella first. Dried blood streaked her forehead. Ridley pressed her fingers to Stella’s jugular.

  “Is she dead?” Emeline sobbed.

  A slight pulse beat beneath Ridley’s fingers. Through the emotions clogging her throat, she said, “She’s hanging on.”

  Emeline buried her face into her arm and cried. From her position on the floor, Ridley studied Emeline’s handcuffs. “Is there a key for the cuffs? Did he take it with him?”

  “Don’t know. I was unconscious when he brought me here. I woke up like this.”

  “Then break your thumbs and get out of them!” How could Emeline not remember one of the first lessons they’d learned in the Order.

  “I have no leverage.”

  And Ridley had no energy to lift Emeline so she could gain leverage to free herself. Unless…Ridley crawled over to Emeline. “Use me.” Ridley positioned herself next to Emeline to use as a footstool.

  One at a time, Emeline lifted her feet and placed them on Ridley’s back. Too weak, the weight too much, Ridley slumped forward.

  “I almost go it,” Emeline grunted.

  “Hurry.” Ridley was fading fast. She didn’t have long.

  “As if breaking your own thumbs is easy.” A snap reverberated in the room Emeline gasped and bit her lip. Panting, she whispered. “One down, but how am I supposed to break the other one?”

  The door squeaked opened. “Let me do that for you.”

  ~~~~~~~

  “Why are we here?” Avery shouted, but EJ ignored him and kept moving through Hathoria Gregory’s house. The structure shook from Avery’s ill-controlled chaos, not an earthquake rocking the foundation, but that was just EJ’s educated guess. He had time for neither disaster. He crossed into the living room and found the ash remains of Hathoria Gregory, the outer shell of Hathor.

  They would honor her life later. Right now, EJ pushed Avery out of his way and grabbed Brayden by his leather coat.

  EJ had been in this house a few times, but not as often as Brayden, Tyrone’s BFF. Ridley had minutes left. “Hathor has a Scrying bowl. Where is it?”

  Brayden’s brow furrowed. EJ didn’t have time for anyone to be confused. “A bowl. Egyptian. Probably gold with lots of gems stuck to it. Egyptians like that sorta shit. Think!”

  Brayden’s eyes widened. “Bedroom.” He shoved away from EJ, and all six men climbed the stairs.

  “Why did you not inform us of the existence of a Scrying bowl?” Reign growled as they burst into the master bedroom. “We could have found the women sooner.”

  “I didn’t know it existed until an hour ago.” When Hathor shared the knowledge in Chemmis. Roman opened his mouth to question EJ, but EJ cut him off with, “Hathor. I just remembered it.”

  There it was, in plain sight on the goddess’s dressing table. Rubies, emeralds, and diamonds interspersed with hieroglyphics circling the anu’Ra. EJ reached for it, and Reign knocked his hand away. “Spill a drop of the sacred water and it will not work.”

  All of them peered into the clear liquid. “Okay, what now?” EJ said to Reign, since he seemed to have a Ph.D. in all things Egyptian. That’s what happens when one spends centuries as a sex slave to a goddess.

  Reign flicked on a nearby lamp. “Think of who you want to see and they will appear.”

  EJ stood shoulder-to-shoulder next to his brother and Roman. EJ wanted to see Ridley, find her, hold her as she died. No one should die alone. But Avery…he had so much more to lose. EJ stepped away.

  Avery leaned closer, his breathing harsh. “Show me, Emeline.”

  The water swirled, swelled to the rim, and turned cloudy. Emeline’s bloody face came into view, but she was alive.

  “Show me, Stella,” Roman said.

  The picture widened and the view panned down Emeline’s body to Stella, splayed at Emeline’s feet.

  “Show me, Ridley,” EJ whispered, more afraid than he’d ever been in his life.

  The picture widened again and turned to show Ridley stumbling into the room and crawling over to Emeline. Ridley still had time. “Now show me where the hell they are.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Ridley peered over her shoulder. She wasn’t surprised to see Alamut blocking the exit. His presence didn’t startle Ridley as much as the Damascus blade he flipped in his hand. Her Damascus blade.

  Bones snapped behind her. Emeline groaned and landed next to Stella, but Emeline was on her feet in the next instance she was positioned in front of Stella, guarding her.

  Alamut glanced around the room then strolled deeper inside. “EJ did not sssend you in here by yourssself. He’sss an SSSOB, but he isss a gentleman.”

  His forked tongue was torture on Ridley’s ears. “I agree. He is a gentleman.” In Ridley’s periphery, Emeline moved parallel to her. They were at Alamut’s four and eight o’clock. Not a bad impromptu strategy.

  “Planning to attack me? He barked. Ridley guessed that was his version of a laugh. “I’ll make it easssy for you.” Alamut transformed into Daniel. “Not that I can’t kill you in either form.”

  Ridley didn’t buy into his statement. She had a few tricks up her sleeves, and Emeline, even with her broken thumbs, was a badass. Together, they would kick Daniel’s ass…if one of them wasn’t pregnant and the other about to—

  The alarm in Ridley’s watch screeched. The New Year arrived with all the bells and whistles.

  —die.

  Emeline used the distraction of the alarm to rush Alamut. Exactly what Ridley had planned to give Emeline a chance to escape until she jumped the gun and Alamut threw the blade at her.

  Emeline wasn’t a demi-god. She could survive a wound from a Damascus blade…but her fetus, the child of the God of Chaos, wouldn’t.

  Ridley poured her final bit of energy into a last-ditch effort to save the child of her enemy and darted in front of Emeline. The blade entered between Ridley’s shoulders and pitched her into Emeline’s arms. The momentum tossed them to the floor.

  Numb, Ridley couldn’t see anything face down, but the dirty floor. Except for the Compendium, the book that had altered her life on her sixteenth birthday. The tome lay a few feet away. The aged leather cover opened by itself. The pages were just as aged as the binding. Her name, she couldn’t miss the bold lettering, the name beneath, JOSIE WESSON.

  Her breath hitched. Tears blurred her vision until she blinked. Josie, she focused on that and nothing else. Not the pain. Not the loss. Just the five letters of her daughter’s name. Except…the ‘E’ vanished. Next the ‘I’. Then the ‘S’. One by one, all of the letters in the name vanished. And the next name, RIDLEY CROSS. Orange flames caught on the edges, licked up the page, and swallowed the entire book.

  Ridley watched the Compendium that had haunted her entire familial line reduced to ash.

  ~~~~~~~

  EJ stepped into the vortex as the grandfather clock in Hathor’s entryway gave its first gong. Mi
dnight. He exited the vortex in time to see a blade slam into Ridley’s back and her pitch into Emeline’s arms. Both women fell.

  Roman, Reign, and the rest swept past him. EJ only had eyes for Ridley. He pulled the blade from the center of her back and took her into his arms. “Go to Stella,” he said to Emeline when she tried to help. A few feet away, Stella struggled to rise. In a moment, Avery was with both of them.

  EJ clung to Ridley, desperate to hold onto her. But she was gone and he hadn’t told her. He crushed her to his chest and gritted his teeth against the desolation burning through him. That didn’t stop the tears from leaking out of his eyes.

  Fingers fluttered across his face. A breath caressed his neck. He yanked her away from the shelter of his body. “Ridley?” Her eyes were wide, her breathing rapid. “How?”

  “Did you see?” she wheezed.

  “S-see what?” Confusion and joy tag-teamed him.

  “The ashes.” She glanced to the left. EJ followed her gaze to the pile of smoldering paper. “It’s the Compendium. It’s over. It’s over,” she muttered. A wet cough choked her and blood trickled from the side of her mouth. Another raspy breath and she slumped in his arms.

  “Reign!” EJ bellowed.

  But Reign and the rest were caught in a deadly game with Daniel who moved with a fluidity EJ had never previously seen. He lay Ridley on the ground and snatched Reign out of the fray.

  “Save Ridley. I’ll deal with Daniel.” He withdrew the Harvester and joined the battle.

  Thane and Quin were bloody, yet still on their feet. His breathing labored, Brayden wielded two short swords. He wasn’t up for this level of combat. EJ shifted in front of him while Roman signaled Quin and Thane to retreat.

  “You think you can stop me because you have the Harvester?” A shit-eating grin curled Daniel’s mouth.

  “I control the quimaera now.” EJ clutched the blade tighter. Daniel opened his mouth, but EJ cut him off. “Save the monologue, Dr. Evil. This movie is over.”

  “You can’t control them if they’re dead and so are you.” The transformation to Alamut came fast along with the muffled echoes of explosives detonating and blast of energy knocking everyone back.